Always
by maggy black
Summary: Draco comes back to Grimmauld place for a place to stay unsure if he is still welcome there, only to find out he is more welcome than he could ever have imagined
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not generally a Harry/Draco shipper, I don't even know why I started to write this, but I did and it's flowing so why not.**

**I own nothing, it all belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.**

Draco had been taking refuge at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place off and on over the past year or so since the battle, though no matter how kind the majority of the order was to him, including Harry, he couldn't help but feel as though he was unwelcome and unwanted there and so he was gone for much longer periods of time now, but he was tired and really did need a place to rest so he came to ask Harry if he was still welcome to stay there.

"Why would I care if you're here?" Harry asked casually, not betraying a hint of emotion.

"'Cause it's me," was all he responded looking down at the ground.

"All the more reason to not mind you being here," Harry replied gently, putting his hand on his shoulder, giving into his emotions, not so careful to hide behind his carefully built wall any more.

"Harry, I treated you like a piece of shit for years, seven years to be exact, a mere year of peace can't possibly erase all that, you should hate me, just the very idea of me being around should tarnish your new found happiness," the young man responded standing his ground, refusing to forgive himself for any of his wrong doings.

"Draco, it's more than me not minding you here, I want you here." Harry finally admitted, he put his other hand on Draco's other shoulder gently forcing him to turn and face him. Draco looked up at Harry, his eyes which had shone with tears of guilt now held confusion. "Whenever you are gone I just want to be with you. I know we have had a rough past but that's alright because everything is different now, we are free to be who we are now." Draco couldn't come up with a proper response, he was so bewildered that he knew there was no way he was able to string an intelligent sentence together, so he said nothing. He instead let himself fall into Harry's arms, feeling them wrap around him, tight and comforting. "I guess what I'm trying to say is… I forgive you." The tears began to flow down Draco's face, tears or relief for his forgiveness, relief of the dark lord and his over bearing father, allowing him to become himself, tears of happiness for finally having the ability to attain the one thing he wanted most.

They stayed like this for awhile, neither wanting to move, to leave the warmth and comfort of each other, neither knowing what to do if they did. It was Harry who finally broke the silence.

"As much as I'm enjoying this, I promised the Weasley's I would be there for dinner. You should come," he said, breaking apart from him holding his shoulders out in front of him, getting a good look at the pale blonde in front of him. "Wherever you've been it doesn't look like it had a good food supply." He teased.

"And just how to you expect me to get there," he responded grumpily. Draco had lost most of his magical abilities in the final battle; he was devastated and ashamed beyond belief, and although they were no longer enemies, Draco was still bitter about the idea of Harry having extraordinary power above most other wizards, while Draco barely had any. Though there was one very peculiar thing about their magic ability. Harry reached down and took Draco's hands in his.

"You feel my powers?" Draco nodded.

"I've devoted the past few months of work to this, it seems as though as long as our skin is touching, we share the same magical ability, eventually you will even gain some of mine without me losing any."

"Does this work between any two wizards or just particularly powerful ones?"

"I haven't fully figured it out yet, exactly what circumstances are required, I've mostly just studied it specifically for us," Harry blushed, "it's not a common occurrence by any means, but that's not to say it's never happened before. There just happens to be certain bonds between us that create that sort of effect. I'll try to explain more later, but for now the Weasley's must be wondering where I am," Harry let go of Draco's other hand, but squeezed the other, "so, are you coming or no?" Harry asked, the look in his eyes telling Draco that from this point on he hopes to never hear the answer no to that question ever again, and the more Draco thought about it, the more he wanted to be with Harry always, and he could never imagine telling him no. He placed his other hand on top of Harry's and looked up into his eyes.

"Always" Harry reached his hand out to cup Draco's cheek and gently pulled his face toward him, his eyes fluttering closed, breaking the fierce eye contact they had held, only to replace that contact with an even more passionate embrace as their lips came in contact for the first time. It was gentle, but chaste, his lips were so soft under his, and as much as Harry wanted to, he kept himself from deepening the kiss as his intentions were that of a brief but meaningful kiss. There was plenty of time for all that later. He broke the kiss to both of their dismay and took his hand in his once again.

"Ready to go?" Harry asked once they had recovered.

"As ready as I'll ever be, just one question."

"What's that?" Harry asked a little concerned.

"Know any good ear muffling charms? Because when I arrive at the Weasley's hand in hand with you, there is sure to be chaos" Draco teased, though still slightly worried.

Harry chuckled and squeezed his hand, "Everything will be okay, how bad could it be " With that they apparated together into the Weasley's front lawn, landing nose to nose with a scowling Ron.

Reviews are appreciated feel free to correct any typos or spelling mistakes as well, chances are good I'll actually go back and fix them, if anyone would like to beta this story, send me a message.


	2. Chapter 2

**So, this was supposed to be a short one-shot but I got a short but sweet review "I'm hooked" and felt obligated to continue, all you guys who added it to story alert and favourited it the first day I posted it helped too :P thank you **** the story shall go on.**

**Everything still belongs to Rowling, not me.**

The day hadn't gone quite as bad as the pair had expected, with the exception of Ron, he was absolutely disgusted. Mrs. Weasley was supportive and treated Draco as she treated every other guest in her house, with the utmost hospitality. She too had noticed that Draco had become, if possible, even thinner than before, and busied herself in the kitchen straight away, preparing a delicious feast for her family, this included Harry. Even though he hadn't married into the family like she had always hoped and expected, that didn't change the fact that he was like a son to her, she had been the closest thing he had to a mother growing up, and he had done so much for the family. Mr Weasley had seemed a little uncomfortable at first, but he got over it, he wasn't overly friendly to Draco, as there was no changing the fact that he was Lucius' son, but he was polite and respectful to him as he wasn't actually Lucius.

"Harry, can we talk?" Hermione asked, peering around the corner into the sitting room where Harry and Draco sat cosily by the fire, while Ginny and George played exploding snap on the floor. Ron of course wasn't around, he refused to be in the same room as them if he could help it, after dinner he got up, glared at Harry and simply stated, "I'm going flying," and he hadn't been seen since.

"Of course, take a seat," he said, moving over to give Hermione some room on the couch.

"In private?" she asked. Harry gave Draco a kiss on the cheek and quietly told him that he would be back. There hadn't been as much time for "all that" as Harry had expected, Mrs Weasley had asked them if they would stay awhile, meaning over night, he thinks she just wants a few days to fatten up Draco.

Harry followed Hermione up the stairs to Percey's old room where he would be staying. They flopped down on the bed, fighting over who got the pillow until they decided they could share. They laid there cuddled up for awhile, just like old times. It had never been romantic, though he couldn't say it didn't mean anything. Hermione meant a great deal to Harry, he loved her very much, but as a friend, his best friend in many ways. Sure Ron was known to be Harry's best friend, and he was, but that didn't change that Ron was quite immature, and not all that bright, however loyal he was. He liked how he could talk to Hermione, have intelligent conversations with her, it was much easier to share his feelings with her as well. Yes, men have feelings, and do feel the need to talk about them sometimes, contrary to popular belief. Though it's not as though Harry was all manly either, he was gay, wasn't he. Was he? Harry hadn't really gotten to think about that yet, he had just finally come to the terms with the fact that he had feelings for someone he had hated for the better part of seven years, his worst enemy, he hadn't really gotten the chance to think about the fact that he was a guy. He had dated Cho, and Ginny, he had even loved Ginny, so could he really be considered gay? Or had he been straight but turned gay…

"Harry?" Hermione called out to him, breaking him away from his ponderings, he turned to look at her. His arms were still wrapped around her, her chin resting on his chest looking up at him. "Finally, I only called you're name about five times," she laughed, "what are you thinking about so hard?"

"Oh, never mind, don't worry about it, what did you wanna talk to me about?" he asked, his hand brushing down her hair.

"It's Ron," she said.

"He still being a prat? I'm telling you, he better smarten up soon or I'm gonna knock him one, I don't know why you haven't yet, or better yet, I don't know why you haven't just gone with the obviously better option you have sitting right in front of you, I think he's just waiting for you to realize what a git his brother is before he actually makes a move."

"Yes he is still being a prat, no George does not return my feelings, he is not an option and does not want to "make a move", but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I know why Ron is so angry about you and Draco."


	3. Chapter 3

**Still not mine, all JK Rowlings, I only wish I was as talented as her. **

"_but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I know why Ron is so angry about you and Draco."_

Harry laughed, "Well it's not like it was unexpected."

"Really? You mean you know?" Hermione looked at Harry curiously.

"Well it's not like it's some big secret."

"It's not?" Hermione was a little confused now, she didn't even know until about a week ago.

"Um, where have you been, he's only hated him for seven years, I mean that time Draco called you a mudblood, I don't think I've seen such hatred from anyone before. And that's not to say I commend his behaviour or even excuse it, I just forgive him. But the point is I know Ron hates him, I mean, so did I, I knew it he would need some time to adjust," she didn't interrupt him, but rolled her eyes a little and waited for him to finish, she had kind of been hoping he did already know, that would make this a lot easier, but as it turns out he didn't so here goes…

"Harry, there's more to it, it's…" she sighed, she didn't think it would be so hard to tell him this, but it had to be done, she stuttered on her words a litte, "he, umm, well, he doesn't like you dating Draco because he wants you for himself," there she had said it, she watched his face waiting for his reaction, surprise, confusion, disgust, awkwardness, something other than what she got, he smiled slightly and didn't look surprised in the least… maybe he had already known?

"Aww, that's sweet but he should know he'll still be my best mate, it's not like Draco is going to take all my time, it's nice to know my friendship means that much to him, that he's that afraid of losing his best mate, I'll be sure to talk to him, let him know just because I found someone doesn't mean he's not still my best mate. But he's also a total git, "he sat up a little angry now, " I mean I've dated before, he never lost me, I still spent plenty of time for him, I never forgot about him, how dare he think I would and what a total hypocrite, he's dating someone too, I never got mad at him for it, because clearly he still makes time for me." Harry was flattered, peeved… and totally clueless.

"No Harry, he _wants_ you," she repeated, putting a lot for emphasis on the want and giving him a look, hoping to merlin he would get it this time and she wouldn't have to go into detail, boys really were a little stunned.

"Oh," was all he could respond with, there was the awkwardness she was looking for, he lay back down on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

"Yeah…" she said, feeling a little awkward herself.

"How do you know? I mean isn't that weird for you?" Harry asked, still not being able to completely wrap his head around it. Ron Weasley, his best friend of 8 years, best guy friend, his mate, his buddy, had a crush on him?

"He told me so, while we were in bed last week," Hermione narrowed her eyes and sounded a little bitter. "I really don't even want to talk about that night, it was pretty bad, more awkward than you can ever imagine."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, but anyway, you should probably talk to him about it, and maybe watch how "couply" you act with Draco in front of him until he gets over it… you. We should find him a nice boy to hook up with, though I'm really not sure if he's actually gay, or just liked you or what."

"I was actually hoping to talk to you about that…" Harry said still feeling really awkward about this whole thing.

"You have been? I thought you didn't know?"

"No, not about Ron being gay or his… feelings… for me. "

"Then what about?" she had adjusted to allow him to cuddle up with her, while she ran her hand through his jet black locks. He left safe and comfortable in her arms, she was the only person he would even consider discussing this with.

" I dunno, I am just wondering what I am. I mean human, wizard, man, I know, but I mean like, am I gay?" he asked the pressing question that he couldn't seem to answer about himself.

"Well, are you attracted to blokes as opposed to girls?"

"Well that's just it, you made both my points right there. First off, take the "s" off of blokes, I mean I've never been attracted to any other guys before, it's only Draco, so I don't really know if that makes me gay, the other point being no, not _opposed_ to girls, I've dated girls before and I did like them, hell I was in love with Ginny. You see my dilemma?"

"I 'spose… I mean, there's the term bisexual, meaning you're attracted to both men and women, but does it really matter what your sexual preference is? You found someone you care about and want to be with and he returns those feelings, I mean unless you're trying to figure out if you want to look for a man or a women, who really cares, you know that everyone who cares about you, doesn't care what you are, you are not gay, or straight or bisexual, you are Harry and that's all that matters." Harry smiled, Hermione really was a wonderful friend, and always knew how to make him feel better. Just then they head a _crack_ just outside the room, then a knock at the door. They disentangles themselves and headed for the door, it swung open to reveal a smiling George, a site that was much more rare than it once was.

"Hermione! Just the person I was looking for," he smiled even bigger as he looked at her, and only her, " I was just wondering if you wanted to come flying with me?" he asked.

"You should probably get back to Draco anyway," she said turning to Harry and giving him a hug, "we'll talk about this again soon. And I would love to George," she said grinning back at him and following him out the door. Harry smiled as he watched them walking away, he loved being right.

**I'm loving all the favourites and story alerts, but some more reviews would be super awesome! They don't have to be long, I'm not picky :P Thanks so much to the people who did review! I'm sorry it was so predictable :P don't worry I'll try to throw in some more crazy twists to make it more interesting. **

**Much love to Lilz for her lovely inspiring message, you're the reason this story is actually happening :D **


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I know it's been like… forever, but I really hope there's still people that kept this on their story alerts and still want to read on, because I've decided to continue it. I have a lot more free time right now so I've been writing more. Anyone reading this should totally check out my other stories :D**

**And of course the HP Universe belongs to JK Rowling not me…**

"Harry?"

"Mmm?" he mumbled into his pillow in response.

"What's a telephone?"

Harry started laughing, still into his pillow.

"I'm serious! I really want to know!" Draco was frustrated and upset that his Harry was laughing at him. He thought Harry would be a great person to ask these questions to…

Harry noticed the hurt expression on Draco's face and tried to straighten his own face out.

"Okay it's an…er… device, that muggles use, where a person can speak into their telephone and the other person can hear their voice coming from theirs and speak back into theirs to respond." Harry felt very awkward describing a telephone but supposed there was some things that seemed just as weird to have to explain to him when he was discovering the wizarding world.

"Why not just... talk to each other?"

"Well it is meant to be used by two people that are out of ear shot from each other."

"Hmmm… ok. You know, I'm starting to feel a little bad for muggles, their lives would be so much easier with magic."

Harry was a little stunned at first, to hear Draco Malfoy actually say he _felt bad_ for muggles. He then thought about the statement further before answering, "you know Draco… they have used electricity in place of magic and in some ways, I think they have it easier than us."

"You can't mean that! Like what?"

"Well… take computers for instance. You know how we have to go searching through books upon books in the library to find information?"

"Yeah?"

"Well computers lets you type… er… press the letters on buttons to form words… the topic you want to find information on, and a whole bunch of information appears instantly. Sure makes homework easier."

"You've got to be kidding me. That is magic! Are you sure there's even such thing as a muggle? Because that totally sound like magic to me."

Harry snickered. "Yeah, I'm sure. Draco you don't know how funny it is to hear you talk about muggles like this. What's your game anyway? Draco Malfoy does not just get a sudden interest in muggles."

"No game," he assured him. "I just figured what with you are your muggle past, and being close to… _muggle-borns,_" He said deliberately, making sure he did not used the offensive term "Mudbloods" as he was accustomed to calling them, "that I should not be entirely ignorant if I want to have a good, proper… relationship… with you." He finished awkwardly.

"Um… ok." Harry clearly took this as a sufficient answer. "So… anything else you want to know?"

"How bout I just ask you as they come up?"

"Alright, well, don't forget you can ask Hermione too, she would probably be better at explaining than me anyway."

Draco scoffed, looking quite perplexed. "Are you kidding me? After the shit I've done and said to her, particularly the comments directly pertaining to the topic, fat chance that she's just gonna sit there nicely with me while I ask ridiculously ignorant questions about the… um… race she grew up in."

"I think you would be surprised."

""Your all fricken saints aren't you?" Draco grumbled. Harry laughed.

"If you mean forgiving and loving and all that then sure, I guess we are. Is that a problem?"

"It's just this new… feeling… urgh feeling, listen to me! This new feeling I've developed, guilt I think it's called, acts up like crazy whenever you people forgive me for my unforgivable behaviour. It's so annoying."

"Well I guess the longer your nice to people you have been an ass hole to the more the guilt will go away. But as long as I've forgiven you and well…" Harry lifted their entwined hands and gestured to them. "Those who are really close to me will too, and you're just going to have to get used to that."

Draco smiled a little, but it faded quickly to a more serious expression. "Does that mean that you and Ron aren't close?" he asked.

"I..uh… he'll come around," was all the answer Harry felt like giving. Harry still hadn't told Draco about what Hermione had told him, nor had he talked to Ron about it. That guilty feeling Draco had just mentioned was starting to creep up on Harry now too. "You know what? I've actually been meaning to talk to him. Would you mind going to the burrow for lunch today?" It was a nice sunny, saturday morning and Harry and Draco were laying in a muggle park within walking distance from Grimmauld Place, just watching the clouds and chatting away.

"You sure it would be okay?" Draco asked hesitantly, though Harry could hear his tummy give a loud grumble trying to drown out Draco as he said it. Harry laughed lightheartedly, the past week that had been spent with Draco had been more lighthearted than Harry could ever remember being in his whole life… with the possible exception of his first month at Hogwarts.

"Yeah, I'm positive," Harry grinned. The pair got up off the ground, brushing the dirt of their clothes and made their way to the nearest point that had been deemed same for disapparation .

It was like déja-vu. As they landed on the front lawn of the burrow, they met the same scowling face they had last time, followed by a coddling Mrs. Weasley, who continued to express her concern for the lack of meat on Draco's bones as she hurried into the kitchen to make lunch.

Draco and Harry looked at each other and followed her into the strangely quiet house.

"Where is everyone?" Harry asked her as he began to butter the bread she had just got out.

"Well… Arthur had to go help Kingsley with some nasty muggle-baiters, he will be gone all weekend." She looked positively tearful at this. "Charlie is still in Romania, Bill is at home," she was counting off on her fingers now, "home being Shell Cottage of course. Percy also has a new flat in London. Fre… er…" she caught herself in her usual habit of using the names together, "George, Ron and Ginny are out back playing Quidditch, and Hermione is at home with her parents."

"So six sandwiches then?" Harry asked as he continued to butter the bread.

"Yes, but I've got it dear, I dare say three people must be difficult to play Quidditch with, why don't you two go join them?"

The couple made their way to the broom shed out in the garden, Harry kept his Firebolt there as there wasn't exactly anywhere for him to fly at Grimmauld place.

"You sure you're okay to use that? Harry looked sceptically at Draco as he grabbed one of their spare brooms, last he checked, Draco wouldn't fly any broom that wasn't amongst the best ever made. While Draco was still fairly pretentious his new relationship with Harry and the obligation he felt to get on the good side of those he cared about had overridden his pretentious pride that would have otherwise prevented him from riding a Cleansweep.

"Don't you worry, with my skills I'll be making this baby look like a Nimbus 2001." Draco told him confidently to ensure Harry that, yes, he was willing to ride on that piece of crap.

The two mounted their brooms at the edge of the clearing that the Weasley's used for Quidditch and soared up to join the others. It appeared Ron was keeping while Ginny and George competed for the quaffle to see who could get more in.

"Mind if we join?"

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING BRINGING THAT ARSE UP HERE?" Ron shouted his face red with rage. Before either of his siblings could stop him he was flying toward Harry with such speed that they didn't think was possible on his broom, but he didn't stop at Harry, he flew straight into him, deliberately knocking him back into the trees behind him. Before Harry could realise what was going on he was off his broom and thanking merlin that they weren't flying very high. On the way down his arm was gouged by a protruding branch before landing on the same arm. He rolled over, glad for his high pain tolerance as he watched the blood trickling down his arm. If his run ins with Voldemort and his death eaters hadn't taught him pain tolerance, his previous Quidditch injuries and his beatings from Dudley certainly would have.

There were now three people surrounding him looking worried and shocked. The first was Draco who grabbed his hand and was asking frantically if he was okay. The second was George, holding both his own broom and Harry's Firebolt that he must have saved when Harry had flown off of it. The third was Ginny, who had already conjured up all the materials she would need to tend to his wound and had already gotten to work wiping off the blood. She was currently in a training program with St. Mungo's for healing.

"Want me to go catch him? Bloody him up too?" George asked staring out over the trees that Ron had taken off over before Harry had even hit the ground.

"No, leave him be." Harry muttered, knowing it wasn't totally Ron's fault for how he had acted.

When the four of them showed up in the kitchen for lunch with Harry's arm bandaged up and missing Ron they decided to tell Mrs. Weasley that it was a Quidditch accident and that Ron had wanted to stay out flying, there was no reason to bring Mrs. Weasley into it. 'Besides', Harry thought, 'I don't want to get him into trouble, it's my fault I haven't talked to him yet.'

While they still had to listen to Mrs. Weasley rant about Ron skipping meals and how dangerous of a sport Quidditch was, they were positive it would have been worse had she known the truth. They managed to get some more pleasant topics in too such as Victoire's first word, Percy's new girlfriend and Ginny's Healer training.

After a lunch of sandwiches and fresh fruit, Harry and Draco retreated to the living room munching on grapes and strawberries, with Ginny and George in tow with a chess board. The two of them sat, watching the moves, it was an incredibly close match, but chess really didn't hold much of an interest for Draco and he was getting rather bored. He reached his hand into the fruit bowl and picked a grape off its vine, slowly making his way toward Harry's mouth with it. The corners of Harry's mouth twitched up into a smile as he noticed what Draco was doing and took the grape into his mouth, darting his tongue out to touch Draco's finger as he did so. Draco repeated this action only this time with a strawberry. By the time Harry got the strawberry in his mouth he heard a voice say,

"Ew, get a room you too!" It was Ginny's voice from across the room, she had just taken George's king and had noticed their interaction. Luckily her voice was teasing instead of disgusted as he may have expected.

"What? I'm injured! How am I supposed to do it myself?" Harry played innocent gesturing his arm wrapped in her own handiwork.

She giggled and nodded towards his un-bandaged arm, indicating that he was obviously able to eat on his own, but she didn't care. She seemed to find the two of them rather… cute. She seemed quite amused whenever she caught site any romantic interaction between them.

"Yeah, well" Harry shrugged and blushed sheepishly.

"Come on," Ginny laughed. Let's go make some use of this nice weather, go play some more Quidditch and hope Ron doesn't show up and come pelting at you again. You guys in?"

"Yeah!" and they made their way out to the clearing to spend the rest of daylight playing Quidditch.

**A/N: So yeah, I continued it, hope I did an alright job picking up where I left off, if anything doesn't flow or make sense or if you have any other suggestions for me, please let me know. Also, please review and let me know that you're reading it, it's always nice to hear. And I am also not posting any more until I get at least one review :P **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you to Lilz for the first review since I finally updated this story, she's the reason it's not a one-shot and the reason for chapter 5 :D **

"So that's when father decided I had to bulk up for Quidditch."

"Wow, did your Mom know about all that?"

"He gave her modified versions of the stories. I never corrected them, for obvious reasons." Draco and Harry were lying on the couch at The Burrow after Mrs. Weasley insisted they stay the rest of the weekend. Each, in turn, were telling stories about their home life. Lucius sounded about as bad, if not worse in some ways, as Uncle Vernon, though his Mom sounded wonderful.

"So, tell me about that time your Father called you gay. Do you think he actually knew or was just being an arse?" Harry prodded, remembering a bit from another story and wanting to hear more. Draco sighed and seemed hesitant a moment before talking.

"Well you see… it goes like this. As always, the remaining days of the holiday were spent with my friends and at the time, my room was playing host to not just myself, but three other guys as well. The ones I didn't spend much time with at Hogwarts and the one didn't even go to Hogwarts. There was Blaise Zabini, Adrian Pucey and Stoyan Tsvetan from Durmstrang. There was a few days left in the holidays and they were spending the night. First thing that triggered Father was when he had offered them each a guest room of their own. We all politely declined his offer, we had decided that would defeat the purpose of the visit, it was a lot more fun to spend the time together, all the guest rooms were spread out so far around the mansion, it would have been ridiculous. So they all stayed in my room, it was big enough. We made a sort of big bed type thing on the floor with mass piles of covers and stuff. So yeah, we all spent the night on the floor in this makeshift bed, talking, laughing and having fun. We talked about Quidditch, pranks, made fun of people, you know, the usual. Yeah so we woke up all together on the bed thing.

'So what's the plan for today?' Adrian had asked when everyone was fully awake and sitting around snuggled in warm blankets.

'Depends,' Blaise said, 'How many times have we been to Diagon Alley since school ended?' Blaise, like Adrian, was also very good looking, lean and fit, although, not even he could understand why, because the food he consumed on a daily basis warranted him to be the size of a Hippogriff."

"Hey! You're not supposed to talk about other guys being attractive around me!" Harry interrupted indignantly. "And, why do you talk about him so past-tense?" he added hestitantly.

"Died," Draco answered bluntly, "in the war," he added. He stiffened a little, his jaw set, like he was trying to be strong about it. "Now do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Yeah yeah, go on." Harry told him, catching the hint that it really wasn't something Draco wanted to talk about.

"Well, anyway, we were snuggled in the blankets sure, but not with each other, we were just talking about what we were going to do that day, point is, we were just talking about our past trips to Diagon Alley when Father walked in to see why we were in the dining room for breakfast yet. He walked in and started yelling and cursing and throwing the blankets off us. Blaise, Adrian and Stoyan made a run for it, Father cornered me. He yelled in my face, called me a "gay son-of-a-bitch", hit me and left the room. Didn't even see him again before I left for school, avoided me at all costs, and my friends had all gone home before I could even say good-bye, Father scared the shit out of them."

"I- wow, that's…"

"Yeah I know, doesn't matter. I don't even think he knew that I was, he just didn't like me under the same covers as three other guys, chatting."

"Was it normal for him to hit you?" Harry asked, concerned.

"Not "normal" per say, but it wasn't rare either." Draco looked at Harry's sad expression and decided that then and there that he hated being the cause of it and would try his hardest to never be again. "Chin up, it's in the past now." He told him, trying to lighten the mood. He reached out and grabbed his chin gently as he said it, brought his face close and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. The two had spent the entire week living in Grimmauld Place living more or less alone together, sleeping together, and still hadn't gone further than a kiss on the lips. The lay silent for a bit, entranced by the kiss, as chaste as it seemed, just a kiss felt exhilarating to both of them, Harry was hoping it would always be so. He never wanted to get used to it.

"How bout I tell you a good story, a happy one?" Draco suggested, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them.

"Sounds nice," Harry smiled.

"Alright, I've got one. It was almost Christmas and I didn't know how exactly I had come to the conclusion that it would be a good idea, but as I sat wrapping some of my Christmas gifts one evening I looked out of the window at the cloudless sky and felt an inexplicable urge to stand in the snow and look up at the stars and the moon. There had always been something that just _felt _magical about the night sky. I know right, everything always been magical in my world, but seriously this is different. The moon shone full and bright overhead. Father was still a bit angry about the morning from the last story, but the situation was getting better. I reflected about it as I sipped at my mug of tea, eyes still on the moon. I decided to do it. I went outside, still in my pyjamas and robe and stood there, in the snow, just looking up at the sky, until I felt something cold hit my back. I turned around… nothing. I quickly bent down and made a few snowballs to be prepared for whenever my attacker decided to show themselves again, then I saw Mom streaking between the trees in front of me and I managed to get the side of her arm with a snowball before she ducked for cover behind one of the trees. We both waited before she decided to run out again, this time she had a whole pile of snowballs in her arm and she pelted them at me. I couldn't stop laughing, it looked so funny, but I could make snowballs fast enough to keep up with her, she was good. Then as I feebly attempted hit her with the two I had managed to make in the time she had hit me with about six, three more came zooming at her from another direction entirely. Father had joined the fight, _and _picked my side to fight on. It was really fun. We were out there till midnight throwing snowballs. We were soaked by the time we went in for tea. It was just really… nice. Mom was so happy that Father decided to make amends with me for the holidays that she didn't even give him trouble for getting her in the face with a snowball. That was a nice Christmas together." Harry was smiling at the end of this story, as was Draco.

"Draco?"

"Mmm? He responded sleepily.

"As much as I am enjoying this, I really should be getting up to Percy's old bedroom, I'm not sure how the rest of the household would react to find us spooning on their living room couch in the morning." Harry told him teasingly. Draco chuckled a little, and squeezed Harry tight, before allowing him to roll off the couch, being careful of his bandaged arm, and stumble up the stairs to bed. As he passed Mrs. Weasley's room he felt a twinge of guilt knowing that she had gone to bed thinking that Ron was still outside playing Quidditch with them and pleaded to Merlin that he would be back before she ever knew he was gone.

It had been a little under two years since the fall of Voldemort, but somehow he still appreciated sitting down at the table of the Burrow for breakfast and seeing almost all of his loved ones still alive and well. It seemed like such a simple pleasure, but to Harry, it wasn't, he was grateful for it every day. Hermione had returned from her parents and was sitting across from him and was giving him a look that brought him out of his reverie, it was stern and said 'I need to talk to you' without her needing to speak the words aloud. Harry nodded to indicate he understood. He grabbed Draco's hand under the table beside him and squeezed it.

"I have to go talk to Hermione after breakfast; will you be okay down here with the others for a bit?" Harry asked Draco quietly so that nobody else could hear.

"Of course."

Up in Harry's room, Hermione didn't waste any time. "So," she was glowering "You still haven't talked to Ron I take it." She asked darkly.

"Um, I would have if he didn't try to kill me," Harry lifted up his bandages arm as if to prove it, "and fly away right after. I planned to try to talk to him as soon as he returned but he hasn't yet." Harry defended himself.

"What are you talking about? He's sleeping in his bed; I went to go visit him when I got here this morning."

"Okay, well he wasn't here when we went to bed last night."

"Well he's there now. Besides, he probably wouldn't even have flown away last night if you had have just talked to him last weekend," she scolded, sounding just like the bossy schoolgirl she was at Hogwarts.

"Okay, okay, I'm going." Each step up to Ron's room felt like he was dragging himself, like his feet were made of lead, a few times he almost turned around and ran back downstairs. He was finally at Ron's door, he knocked a few times, and when there was no answer, he decided to just open the door and walk in. There was Ron fast asleep in his bed. Ron, who had knocked him off his broom and didn't even stick around to see if he was alright, but he didn't look so dangerous while he was sleeping. No, he looked rather innocent actually. Harry cautiously took a few steps forward, and when Ron didn't stir, he sat down on the bed beside him. He was out cold.

"Ron?" Harry said really quietly, as though hoping to not get a response. When he didn't he leaned back on the bed against the other pillow. He and Hermione were still sharing a bed, Mrs. Weasley didn't know that they had broken up yet. Ron turned over in his sleep and cuddled the blankets up under his chin. Harry smiled fondly at this action and stroked the hair out of his eyes that had fallen in his face. He continued stroking his hair absent mindedly for a while, thinking back to their Hogwarts days, going back through the years and realising how devastating it would be to lose his friendship.

"Harry?" Ron said with his eyes still closed. Startled, Harry removed his hand from his hair, and tried to figure out if Ron was talking in his sleep on not, but decided to answer anyway.

"Yeah?" he said tentatively.

"That felt nice," he replied, grabbed hold of his hand and placing it back in his hair and Harry began stroking it again.

"How long have you known I was here?" he asked, a little alarmed.

"Awhile."

"What time did you get in?"

"About 6 o'clock this morning. How's your arm?"

"I'll live."

"Does Mum know I was gone?"

"No."

"'K, good." He mumbled starting to fall asleep again. Knowing that his Mum was of sound mind seemed to have relaxed him more.

"So, are we still friends?" Harry asked, again very tentatively.

"Yeah, I'll find my own guy someday, we can be mates. S'pose 'mione told you?"

"Yeah, yeah she did."

"Of course. Whatever, better her than me," they chuckled at this.

"You know I still don't like seeing you guys together."

"I know."

"And I have no plans to be his mate."

"I know."

"But that I'll put up with him being around, and be civilised with him if it means being your mate."

"I know."

"Now you better get back down there to him before he finds us together and thinks I'm getting my way. "Ron told him reluctantly.

"Yeah, I s'pose you're right." Harry gave Ron a swift kiss on the forehead as Ron fell back asleep, closed the door quietly and made his way back downstairs feeling much lighter than he had on the way up.

**A/N: Little bit of drabble there, hope you liked it. I've always pictured Lucias being controlling and maybe even a little abusive to Draco, interesting for them to see where each other came from. And don't worry more to come about the restoration of Draco's power. **

**Thanks so much for all the story alerts and faves too… but even a few word review would be wonderful :P More feedback, more story. **

**P.S. Please check out my other stories : )**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Yay! Longest chapter yet! Lol, I just couldn't find a good place to end it. It did take a while to update, but it's here now, enjoy!**

"Sir Sivan Lynch was the Duke of a beautiful piece of land in the south of England, name lost over the centuries though it has been rumoured to be called Watson. Later in life when he chose to indulge himself further in his studies, the townspeople felt the need to change his title to something more appropriate for his work and hire a new Duke for the land. They had so much respect for him and his work that they…" Harry snapped the book shut and rolled his eyes. "It all just seems to be some stupid biography about the guy. I don't care about his bloody title, I want more on his findings!"

Harry was getting really frustrated by this point and lay his head on the table to think. Him and Draco were sitting at a table in largest library in the ministry. The pair had already scoured the Auror library the past couple weeks thinking it was there best bet and found nothing, so they decided to make their way through this large cathedral sized library and were surprised to find it completely useless so far. Harry had been working tirelessly through his evenings after work with Draco by his side, trying to learn whatever he could about the strange magic that could potentially help his restore Draco's powers. Every other evening was spent in the libraries, while the off evenings were spent on the practical work. Draco could now easily perform a spell with him being the one to utter the incantation and holding his wand, the only thing that Harry needed to do was wrap his hand around Draco's. The pair decided that weekends would be a break for them.

"Why don't we begin again on Monday. It's Friday night, it's about time we get some rest anyway." Draco had scooted his chair close to Harry's and was now running his hands through his black messy hair making it, if possible, even messier.

"Yeah, alright." Harry sighed reluctantly. He grabbed Draco's hand out of his hair, gave it a kiss, and then got up and began cleaning up the array of books they had spread out around them. There was just one book left on the far end of the table and Harry pulled Draco toward him. He took his hands his, pulled them around him so that his back was nestled into Draco's front. "I want to try something."

"Woah, Harry, I mean I've been looking forward to trying that someday too, but isn't this a little public?" Draco teased. Harry nudged him playfully in the side with his elbow.

"Not_ that,_" he rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same. "I've just been thinking. You can perform every spell we've tried, flawlessly with my hand around yours, even the complex spells you can get first try now, but what about non-verbal spells?" Harry craned his neck back to gage Draco's reaction, and not surprisingly, he looked sceptical. While so much of Draco had changed since Hogwarts (thankfully), most of his facial expressions had not. There were a few added ones sure, genuine smiles, kindness, loving even… though the words hadn't been spoken out loud. But all the facial expressions he had already made before remained exactly the same and startled Harry a little sometimes when he saw them, almost expecting Draco to throw Harry off him and start insulting his mother. This sceptical facial expression was one of them, the same look he had on his face as Professor Slughorn gave credit to amortentia that Draco very much doubted. Back then, Draco had no inclination that love was as powerful as it is.

"No harm in trying." Draco smiled (not smirked), which was one of the new facial expressions that Harry much preferred.

"Alright, so I was thinking we could start off simple, maybe levitating this book back onto its shelf?" Harry suggested, looking back at Draco, who was still holding him, making sure that his facial expression hadn't returned to scepticism.

"_Wingardium Leviosa, _right?" Draco checked with Harry.

"Yes… wow this whole not using magic on a regular basis has really been getting to you, were you seriously unsure of that?" Draco blushed at Harry comment. For being as Pureblood as he was, Draco was extremely embarrassed about his loss of powers.

"Well, I was pretty sure, I guess I just feel like I'm always second guessing myself when it comes to magic these days." Harry stopped teasing him at once and his expression softened.

"Draco, confidence is essential in these exercises and you had better work on that if you plan on fully restoring your powers. Now, come on, I _know_ you can be confident. I've watched your arrogant attitude for seven years and I refuse to believe it's totally vanished." Draco smirked.

"Well I guess not totally, no," while these expressions did throw him off and reminded him of the old "Malfoy", it was almost a little comforting to know it was the same person who had tormented him back at Hogwarts. He liked knowing that someone that awful really could, and did, change for the better, and that he, Harry was reaping the benefits. He remembered looking at his sleek blonde hair and toned arms at school, and feeling a little bitter. Harry had always just taken that for jealousy in that he wished he looked like that too, but he knew better now. It was more that he was bitter about someone that attractive having such a horrible personality.

Draco reached into his pocket and grabbed his wand, as he brought his hand out, Harry's hand grasped his firmly. He could tell Draco was trying to concentrate and kept his silence. He watched the book on the table for about thirty seconds before it did anything at all, but even then it only moved an inch or so to the left. After about another 30 seconds of watching the book slide and flop around he got really excited as it lifted about a foot off the table.

"You're doing it!" Harry said excitedly just before he watched the book come crashing back down on the table and felt Draco free his hand from his grip. He turned around and watched a sweaty and even more pale than usual, Draco, lowering himself into a chair weakly.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked his boyfriend with serious concern etched in his face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Draco panted. "Just getting weak… takes a lot… out of me."

"Shhh, don't talk, catch your breath first." Harry gently wiped some of the sweaty tendrils of hair off of Draco's forehead. He then pulled out his own wand and transfigured his ink bottle into a glass and filled it with water from his wand.

"Thanks," Draco murmured in response to both Harry's kind gestures and the glass of water. As much as he would never admit it, not even to Harry, as he was supposed to be entirely independent and strong, Draco Malfoy loved having someone take care of him.

"Okay, let's go again," he finally said determinedly after a few minutes of silence.

"You sure you're up for it?" Harry asked, still concerned for his well-being. Draco's eyebrows furrowed in aggravation.

"Yes I am up for it, I'm not delicate or anything," he snapped, but as soon as he saw the offended expression on Harry's face he reached out and touched his arm gently.

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I just… Usually when people ask me stuff like that they're insulting me or calling me weak, I'm not used to such… good intentions I suppose." Draco stuttered in apology. Harry smiled as though he understood, stood up and said,

"Alright, let's do it, that book is going on the shelf." Draco stood too and resumed his position in front of Harry with his wand out and Harry's hand around his. He worked away again for about a minute with the book hovering a feet in the air, not quite high enough to reach its spot on the shelf and refusing to move one direction or another, then out of the blue, Harry released his hands and came around to kiss him right on the lips, while their mouths were closed, it was still much more passionate than a kiss and, as always, made Draco's heart soar. But that's not the only thing that soared. Draco opened his eyes and went cross eyed for a moment with Harry's face so close to his, looked around him and saw that his book was zooming up toward the ceiling. He let out a small laugh, he felt elated at being able to perform that strong of a non-verbal spell again. He sealed his lips on Harry's once more, only this time with his eyes open and looking around Harry at the book, enjoying the kiss but still focusing on the book. Soon, he managed to lower the book to the height of the shelves, and direct it smoothly into the empty slot on the shelf from which they had taken it. Draco grinned, and looked at Harry grinning back at him, taking a small step back to look at him better.

"Did you know that was going to happen?" He asked slyly. Harry laughed.

"Not exactly, I was hoping it would. I think our practical lessons are going to get a lot more fun next week," he smiled mischievously. And with that, the pair packed up and called it a night and went home to Grimmauld Place to enjoy the beginning of their weekend.

The following day the couple decided it would be a good day to visit the burrow, the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect, _and _they had gone out and brought Draco a new broom that week.

When they got there they found it packed. The whole Weasley family was there, plus some. Harry stopped to shake hands with Kingsley, who was on his way into the house as Harry was on the way to the garden.

"Good afternoon Minister," he smiled at him, he enjoyed being able to call him this, so far he was doing a fantastic job.

"Good afternoon, but please, call me Kingsley," he returned the smile.

"Charlie," Harry nodded and smiled as he passed Charlie who evidently had finally managed to get some time off from Romania, and was now walking toward Mr. Weasley's tool shed, where Harry could see through the open door Mr. Weasley working away on something. He saw Hermione sitting under a tree but decided against greeting her at the moment, when he noticed George next to her, the pair of them smiling and laughing as they chatted to each other animatedly. Finally they walked over to the large table that was set up in the garden, presumably to hold the incredible amount of occupants in the house for lunch.

"Harry!" Mrs. Weasley beamed as she saw him approaching and enveloped him in one of her motherly hugs, and then turned to Draco to do the same. Harry couldn't help chuckling a little at the awkward expression on Draco's face. Mrs. Weasley took no notice of this. "So glad, you could make it, you got my owl then? I wasn't sure it would get to you, I don't trust that little freak of a bird Ron calls an own, as cute as he is."

"Um… no?" Harry looked at her questioningly. "Just thought we would come to say hello and see if anyone was up for a game of quidditch."

"Oh, well I'm glad you two could make it at any rate. I'll go and tell Ron to make sure Pig doesn't get confused and makes his way back. Harry squeezed Draco's hand and looked at him to see the expression on his face that Mrs. Weasley's hug had caused hadn't completely worn off yet. He surveyed the scene around the garden again, not quite sure where to go when he noticed a disgruntled Ginny sitting at the large table by herself. Harry led Draco to the table to go see what was up.

"Hey Ginny" he said finding his way to a seat across from hers.

"Harry, not now please" she said.

"What's up?" he asked her, concerned.

"I said not now!" she told him, raising her voice and sounding seriously on the verge of tears. Jumping at the sudden loud tones coming from the girl… well, woman, and taken aback a little, Harry made to get up. He felt a soft small hand on his arm, as though gently asking him not to leave.

"I'm sorry Harry, you didn't do anything, I shouldn't be taking it out on you," her tone softened as she looked up at him, tears still threatening to spill out over her eyes. She then turned to Draco, looking very apologetic.

"I… I'm sorry, I really don't feel comfortable talking about… In front of… she was choking on her words now, the tears finally started to break through.

"I understand," he told her, not making her finish her sentence, he got up to leave and squeezed Harry on the shoulder before setting out in search of someone who didn't hate him and wouldn't mind talking to him for a bit.

"What is it?" Harry asked her gently while he rubbed her back and let her cry. He thought back to the days where crying girls were one of his worst fears and he had had no idea how to deal with them. He got over this pretty quickly after the war, they were crying all the time. Not just girls either, the guys too had certainly done their share of crying, it was a daily occurrence for poor George, even now.

Ginny didn't answer Harry but instead shoved a crumpled piece of parchment into his hand. It was a letter, and it looked like it had been read about a hundred times, cried on and kept in her hands since she had received it. He looked at her as though to ask permission to read it, even though she had handed it to him. When she gestured for him to go ahead, he attempted to smooth it out and started to read the almost faded words on the page.

_Ginny,_

_Sorry if this letter arrives a bit early, but better early than late, isn't it? First off, I want to say Happy Birthday to a very special girl. Next I'd like to apologize for not being around much. It's been a lot of work keeping up with this Quidditch team. The Appleby Arrows are really good, and I'm struggling to keep up with the talent, I'm sure you would have no problem, but I'm not nearly as good at Quidditch as you. But it's not just their skill, they're a pretty cool bunch of blokes, they like to party a lot, but it seems that when I'm not practising Quidditch I'm with you. It also seems that you expect me to be around most on weekends and events/holidays, and frankly, that's when they party hardest. They already think I don't fit in with my Quidditch skill level, though that has improved dramatically. Really, I'd like something to show them that I _can_be one of the crowd. I guess what I'm saying is that having a girlfriend isn't really fitting in with my life right now, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't ruin your Birthday, hope you enjoy your present._

_Sincerely,_

_Ian_

"I… oh, Ginny." Harry couldn't believe what arses some blokes could be. He looked over at the girl sitting next to him. She had stopped crying but now had her head on her folded arms on the table, her face tear stained and a faraway look in her eyes.

"There's something else isn't there…" Harry knew Ginny pretty well after his time dating her, and while what this Ian character did to her was bloody awful, he could tell that it wasn't the only thing that was upsetting her. Ginny rolled her eyes at Harry, wishing he wasn't so good at reading her, though a little thankful she could share without having to come right out and tell him something else was wrong.

'_Please don't let her be pregnant…' _Harry thought to himself, having no idea what else could make this situation any worse. Ginny then handed him another piece of parchment, this one much less crumpled and not blotched with tears. Harry took it from her and noticed the official looking logo in the corner and began to read.

_Dear Ms. Ginevra Weasley,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as the replacement chaser for The Appleby Arrows…_

"Oh no…" Harry looked up at Ginny bewildered, "No…" Ginny nodded glumly, head still on her arms, but clearly still didn't trust herself to speak. Harry read on…

_Details of the offer have been attached to this letter, along with a form to fill out should you choose to accept the offer. Mr. Dean Thomas' dismissal period will be over August 29__th__ though you are welcome to start training as soon as you wish, although no later than August 29__th__…_

Harry looked up again. "Dean Thomas?" Ginny lifted her head and took a deep breath as though willing the tears not to start up again when she spoke.

"Yeah, one of the guys on Ia… _his _team." Harry noticed her reluctance to speak his name, only then truly realising how much this was hurting her. "Only player worse than him when he started, guess he didn't last long. "Figured it was great, my ex leaving the team, things wouldn't be awkward if I joined (plus a space opened up) and…" Ginny let out a frustrated scream. "Harry, forget it, I'm sick of crying, I'm going to go help Mum with lunch, distract myself a little, you wanna save your boyfriend and join me?" Harry looked around, confused, for Draco, finally spotting him a few feet from Bill and Charlie, in a… could it be? Civil? Conversation with Ron!

**A/N: Thank you to Lilz who continues to show her support, and gave me my only review for last chapter, it is much appreciated : ). To those of you adding this to their story alerts, thank you for your support too, but please please, one quick review, it's all I ask : ( Plus it is much better incentive to update if you want to read more! :P**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Thank you so much everyone for all the faves and follows! :D Means a lot! And even more, thank you so much to kaley, nannily, and as always Lilz ;) And guests too lol, it would be nice to know who you are but I appreciate the reviews just the same :P**

"Why do you trust me? When did it start?" Draco asked Harry. They were lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling; they had only just gotten back from the burrow an hour ago.

"Well, I was actually talking to Hermione about this a long while back. She couldn't believe I'd gone back in that fiendfyre to save you. And after our time in… well, in your house," Harry thought it a little odd to refer to it as "the Malfoy Manor" to a Malfoy. "I had later said that I was sure you had known it was me when our eyes met."

"Yeah… I did. You know…" Draco rolled over onto his stomach and came to rest on Harry's chest. It was much broader than it had once been and its hair was a recent development. He adjusted his head so that it was comfortable but could still look up into Harry's eyes. "That had to be one of the worst parts of that war. It was weird, it was like, even though we were considered like "enemies" or something while we were at Hogwarts, out there in the real world, you guys felt closer to childhood friends than enemies, as silly as that sounds. But I don't know just how serious we were all the time we were harassing each other, well seriousness in comparison to that of the death eaters." Draco furrowed his brows and glanced down to his left arm, but did not comment on the fact that he had once held that title too. "Okay, I can't explain why it felt like that, but I mean we all knew each other pretty well, had gone through school together, all the same classes, adventures too sometimes, even if we were on opposite sides. Back to the point, I just couldn't stand watching you guys get tortured and even worse, in my house. I wanted so badly to do more, but when the chance came to finally be able to help you, it was all I could do to keep the excitement off my face. I knew it was you even before we made eye contact, but it wasn't until then that I knew that you knew I knew it was you."

Draco rolled back over onto his back and resumed staring at the ceiling. They laid there in silence for a while, thinking about that moment before Harry broke it.

"But that wasn't when I started trusting you…" He told the young man beside him as he rolled over onto his side, resting his hand on the other man's abdomen.

"I know… and I still want to know when it was that you did. Was it gradual? Can you pinpoint the moment? How did it happen? I can't think of a moment where I did anything spectacular enough to melt away the scars of seven years of, what I would have thought, as unforgivable abuse and hatred." Harry had started stroking his stomach softly, helping to ease the grim expression Draco's face was trying to form, and making him instead want to smile. The effect of the conflicting facial expressions was humourous and Harry let out a chuckle.

"How is that funny? What is wrong with you?" Draco was looking a little irritated now and Harry stopped chuckling.

"I just… your face…" Harry finished lamely.

"My face? Come on, even a Gryffindor can come up with a better insult," Draco smirked. He didn't want to be the one to wipe the smile off Harry's face and so lightened the mood.

"Fine then, your Mom's face," Harry stuck his tongue out.

"Ohhh, you did not!" Draco feigned offense, grabbed the nearest pillow and slammed Harry to the bed with it. Harry laughed at Draco's playfulness, and laughed even harder, screaming, as Draco began to tickle him. It was absolutely insane, Harry thought, Draco Malfoy, on top of me, tickling me. Back at Hogwarts, if anyone ever so much as hinted that this would even happen they would have been a special place in Mungo's for them to stay, probably right next to poor dear Gilderoy Lockhart.

Harry caught hold of Draco's hands and wrenched them from his side where Draco was tickling him, and held them above his head, forcing Draco to lay fully on top of him. He shifted a little trying to move whatever limb was digging into him and get comfortable. When that didn't work, Harry figured Draco must still be in his old habit of never leaving his wand out of reach, the war could do that to you. Harry's own wand was currently on the nightstand next to him with a protective charm around it. He reached down to grab the offending object and remove it from his pocket only to realise once he got down there that Draco's wand was next to Harry's on the stand and that it was something else entirely that was digging into him. He let go quickly and looked up at the blonde boy on top of him to notice his cheeks a shade pinker than when he had last looked at him.

"My abs are sensitive okay? Don't like it, don't touch them like that," Draco started getting all defensive. Harry smiled, took Draco's hands in his, wrapped his legs around him and rolled them both over so that Harry was now on top of him. He lifted himself off the other's body just enough to reach down and start stroking his abs in exactly the way he had while they were talking. Draco's defense expression melted away pretty quickly into a great big Malfoy smirk, the cockiest expression that he could muster, and that was certainly saying something.

"Oh? So you do like it?"

Harry rolled his eyes at just how cocky he could get, no pun intended. It made him want to call him Malfoy again.

Draco laughed, "Haha, you do!" Harry smiled and brought his hand down to touch him again. It felt really nice through his silk boxers, but he still felt a little awkward and nervous about touching it. The only person he had ever touched before was Ginny, but she was a girl, so this felt entirely new. That's not to mention the fact that not only was he a he, but he was Draco Malfoy.

"I do… I just… I'm not… ready, to… to do anything with it yet." Harry felt himself blushing and felt extremely awkward, finding himself rolling off Draco and rubbing the back of his neck out of habit.

Draco's cocky expression softened and he took Harry's hands into his. "I know, it's okay. You're more than welcome to touch me whenever you want, but don't feel like you have to. Just… whenever you're ready, I'll wait."

"Have you…" Harry asked in response, gathering that the other man in the bed, was definitely ready himself.

"I have done… you know… stuff with a bloke before, never had sex though." Harry looked at him incredulously, "I'm not a virgin!," Draco corrected, " I've had sex with loads of girls! Just never with a man."

"Loads?"

"Um, well, you know…"

"How many?"

"You really want to know?"

"Probably not, but I am curious."

"Twenty one." Harry bolted upright and almost fell off the bed.

"Um, sorry," he told Draco as he saw the look he was giving him, and started laughing nervously. "I just, I heard you wrong," he laughed a little harder, "I heard you say twenty one, can you believe that? Haha…" Draco raised his eyebrows and Harry stopped laughing at once, seeing that he had not heard him wrong.

"Oh."

"I told you you didn't want to know."

"No you asked if I really wanted to know."

"Well it implied that." Harry sighed and turned over with his back facing him and lay down on the pillow.

"Good night Draco."

"What, that's it? No kiss? No nothing? Not even gonna come close enough to cuddle?" Harry didn't answer.

"Fine." Draco turned over too, on the opposite side of the bed, "Night."

They both lay awake for what felt like hours, both of them well aware that the other was also still awake. Then, it happened almost simultaneously. Harry moved back a little toward the centre of the bed and Draco turned around and scooted forward, wrapping his arm around Harry, nuzzling his face into his neck, and together, they fell asleep.

**A/N: Bit of a shorter chapter, and a little more physical lol, I'm sure it'll please some readers and perhaps lose others. I tried to keep the details and descriptions to a minimum in attempt to keep the story T rated.**

**If anyone is offended by this chapter, let me know and I apologize and I will change the rating to M, but as far as I can see it still fits under: "****Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language."**

**Hope you liked it, I look forward to more reviews ;) **

**Cheers :) **


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Been awhile I know lol School is busy, age old excuse I know, but it's the truth, please forgive me and I hope you are all still following

Disclaimer: Wonderful world of J.K Rowling being played with by me!

The work week passed with little progress on Draco's powers' and lots of overtime at work. In addition to their regular work, the Auror's had the task of putting together the charity ball, worst part, Harry was to be the special guest. He had received the inter-office memo from Kingsley on Monday morning. He sounded terribly sorry to ask this of him, and just as sympathetic of his tiredness for public attention, but nonetheless stressed how important it is for the public to be able to hear from their hero every so often and just how much it means to them. Harry almost chickened out and sent his regrets. And after the events of the night, he regretted not sending his regrets, it was just an overall bad night.

It began with a collision. Harry had run into the person he least wanted to see, literally. Rita Skeeter had smashed into him, causing him to spill wine all down the front of his robes. She had later, in her article about him, attributed the state of his appearance to him being drunk and flustered at the sight of such an attractive witch (her).

Then he ran into none other than Cho Chang, this time, luckily, not literally. She had told him that she was glad he was gay because she was really still quite attracted to him. Harry was quiet in the face of her blunt pronouncement. They stood there for what felt like a few minutes but was probably only a few seconds, in awkward silence before Cho mumbled something about punch and left him standing there.

Before long Harry was swept away by his boss, Proudfoot to come meet some foreign visitor's.

"Harry, this is Nadine, Geneva, and Solange, recent graduates from Beauxbatons, they're thinking about signing up for the Auror program here in London, they wanted to come talk to some of our finest to hear about what life as an Auror is like." All three of them looked like they could have been models. Nadine had long silvery hair and looked like she could have been related to Fleur, Geneva, a striking brunette with big, bright blue eyes and Solange with flowing black hair and the contrasting red dress showed off a good portion of her long legs.

"We –ave –eard so much about you -arry!" Solange told him as she shook his hand.

"Eet's a pleasue to meet you," Geneva echoed.

The five of them chatted for a while, Proudfoot steering the conversation to showcase his department, evidently hoping that these girls would decide to go ahead with the Auror training and join them. Through their beauty and thick accents, Harry could tell they were very sophisticated women and had Proudfoot not told him otherwise, he would have thought they were much older than they were.

To his relief, it looked as though Draco had finally escaped the clutches of his father's old ministry contacts who felt the need to schmooze Draco as they did him. They must have figured out that Draco didn't accept most of his inheritance. He watched Draco walking away from them, looking through the throng of people for him. Harry gave him a little wave and their eyes met, both men feeling a smile spread across their face. Draco made his way over to him and put his arm around the small of Harry's back, Harry returned the gesture.

The French girls gave them a questioning look, Harry wasn't sure if it was due to the fact that his partner was a man or if they were merely implying that introductions to the newcomer were in order. Harry decided to assume the latter.

"Oh, this is my boyfriend Draco. Draco this is Nadine, Geneva and Solange," he told him gesturing to the beautiful women.

Had that been _disappointment_ he'd spied? He could have sworn the girls' faces fell a little as he said "boyfriend". While he wasn't interested in them in the least, he couldn't help but feel extremely flattered that such gorgeous sophisticated women were potentially interested in him.

"They're here from France to learn more about our Auror program and potentially go through it," he finished politely.

"Oh! That's great!" Draco smiled at the ladies in front of them and the exclaimed. "Oh my! That is a beautiful dress! Is that from the Dragoness Puissant collection by Renée Marie DesChênes?"

"Mais oui!" Solange smiled at his boyfriend, obviously flattered and impressed. Harry noticed Proudfoot's facial expression change at this act of flamboyance on his boyfriend's part. He knew he was a little afraid of that; his impenetrable façade is cracking around Potter.

There was a fairly heavy emphasis on anti-discrimination since the war. It became illegal to discriminate based on things like blood status, racial background or _sexual orientation. _To Harry's surprise he found that Proudfoot was having some trouble with that. While his sexual orientation wasn't even something he was allowed to ask Harry upon his entrance to the Auror program, being "The Boy Who Lived", nothing stays quiet very long anyway. Harry noticed his discomfort from the beginning. It wasn't the only thing Proudfoot discriminated against, he knew, but he also knew that Proudfoot had the make of a politician. Never, in public, did he allow his views on certain groups be shown to others, hence the "impenetrable façade". He knew that Harry was an incredibly influential public figure and Proudfoot liked to use it to his advantage. If he were to be quite honest, Harry couldn't wait till Proudfoot's retirement, he reminded Harry too much of "the old ministry" and didn't like his ways.

"Why don't we all have a seat? We can discuss the Auror training program some more, these charming ladies must be getting impatient," Proudfoot interrupted as they started chatting amiably about fashion. Harry was positive they certainly didn't mind the topic of conversation and were in no way impatient, but led the group to the benches set up in front of the stage.

"Hey, thanks for coming to join me, I was dying over here on my own," Harry smile and whispered into Draco's ear.

"You're welcome" he said, as Proudfoot sat down beside him and immediately shifted closer to Nadine. Harry watched a slight scowl appear on Draco's face before quickly regaining composure and went back to showing none of his emotions at all.

"Alright ladies, what do you want to know?" Harry asked them. They had angled the bench they shared with Proudfoot toward them so as to talk better, though Geneva made sure she got to sit next to Harry on the bench he and Draco shared. Apparently she had decided to ignore the fact that Harry wasn't playing for the right team or even available.

Harry was relieved when Proudfoot latched onto the subject of his Auror department and they got straight down to business, discussing all the ins and outs, that weren't considered confidential of course, to the women. Harry kept turning to look at his date, expecting him to be bored with the conversation, only to be surprised every time to see him listening intently to the discussion.

Harry groaned inwardly as the Master of Ceremonies for the night, Horatio Gamp, took his place on stage. He knew he was about to be put out in front of everyone and had to play the stupid hero again for a bit, smile, make speeches, sign autographs and whatnot, this whole thing is ridiculous, he thought to himself smiling. He knew it was only a matter of time before people started to look at him, and he figured he probably shouldn't be caught scowling as the MC is talking about the Sick Kids Foundation of St. Mungo's, as that is the chosen charity for this event.

When he finished speaking and introduced the special guest, Harry Potter, Harry took on his bite-the-bullet attitude and put himself into a sort of daze as he got up on stage, made his speeches, had his photograph taken about a hundred times, shook some hands and then finally introduced the next speaker, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic. Harry shook Kingsley's hand and finally felt his fake smile meld into a real one and he made eye contact with Kingsley who's eyes were filled with appreciation mingled with a bit of sympathy, knowing how much Harry hated public appearances like that. He then resumed his seat and watched the rest of the ceremony safely at a distance.

The rest of the night passed by without much excitement, Proudfoot excused himself, mumbling something about the head of the International Magical Cooperation, as the topic began to stray from the Auror program. Draco was again charming the French women, talking about girly things like fashion, shopping, cheesecake recipes, attractive male celebrities…

Harry, Draco and the girls stayed to watch the band, Devil's Snare, and made way for the screaming fans of Celestina Warbeck before she hit the stage. The group made their way outside the ballroom and into the garden, where they could actually hear each other. Harry stifled a yawn as they took a seat on a bench across from the women along the garden path. Harry notices the tinkling fairy lights in the bushes, much like the ones in the Hogwarts gardens at the Yule Ball in his fourth year. Also not unlike Hogwarts' Yule Ball, he thought he could hear some couples in some nearby bushes who had clearly escaped the busy crowd for some privacy.

"What do you think? Just about time to call it a night?" Draco leaned into Harry and whispered into his ear.

Harry shivered, and it had nothing to do with the Winter Air as a warming charm, had been cast over this part of the garden, he had no choice but to attribute the forming goose bumps to the proximity of Draco's lips to his ear.

"Yeah" Harry replied huskily, not feeling quite able to elaborate much.

The couple stayed and talked with the foreign visitors just as long as was necessary to be polite, stood up and announced that they were calling it a night.

"Awww," the three girls chorused in unison. "Will we see you both again?" asked Geneva.

"If you get a chance to visit the Auror office again this week, you'll most likely see me," offered Harry.

"Zat will not do!" Nadine told him, "We must see both of you!"

"We leave Saturday morning of next, we will see you for dinner on Friday night?" Solange suggested.

"It's a date" Draco smiled. The group exchanged hugs and kissed good bye, and just as Harry and Draco turned to walk to the nearest apparation point, Cornelius Fudge strode past, glaring at Draco, Harry raised his eyebrow at him.

As they apparated to the top step of Grimmauld Place, Harry's eyebrow had remained raised.

"So I _might've_ yelled at Fudge a little more than necessary," He told him as they entered the hall.

"Ah, so that's why Fudge was glaring daggers at you?" he asked, looking behind him and Draco as they climbed the stairs.

"Might've been," mumbled Draco. "So that Geneva girl, she's quite a loquacious one don't you think?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I don't know, _I_ liked her," he told him, accepting the change of topic as he stripped down to his boxers, getting ready to finally climb into his warm comfortable bed. He'd just remember to ask him about Fudge in the morning, he didn't want to really get into it tonight, even if he was curious.

"Me too!" Draco told him indignantly. "Loquacious, it means talkative, he told him pompously with a smirk as he realised Harry didn't understand the question.

Harry felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks and was glad Draco had turned away from him to cuddle. He moved closer so that his chest was against his partner's back and wrapped his arm around him, burying his face in his neck. "Yeah, she was," he agreed, remembering as his lips touched Draco's neck, of the whisper in his ear back in the garden. He parted his lip and began kissing and sucking on Draco's neck, loving the sounds it caused him to emit. Draco turned over and guided Harry's lips to his own, sliding himself underneath the other man. Wearing nothing but their boxers, it was pretty easy for the pair to tell that the other had grown hard. While Harry was pretty tired out from the ball, he was sure he could keep away for another hour or so as they explored each other's bodies… and so they did…


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thank you so much everyone for your support, reviews and favourites mean so much to me, please keep reviewing everyone!**

Harry was very careful not to let their explorations go _too _far that night, but was quite satisfied with how much he had tired Draco out, he had passed out right after he had finished, before he could even hear Harry tell him good night. Harry wasn't unhappy about it, just a little jealous that he wasn't able to do the same. Try as he might, sleep just wouldn't come. As Harry lay there in the dark, guilt seemed to creep up on him like a dark shadow, the guilt of not working on the Power Transfer project as he had begun to call it, the guilt of his nightly decision that it was too late to bother working on it when he got home from work. After what felt like hours, even though a glance at the watch he had discarded on the night stand told him it had only been twenty minutes, Harry resolved to the fact that he wasn't about to get any sleep until he remedied the guilt, even if only a little.

He rolled out of bed, careful not to wake Draco, and began to gather his things to go down to his study and wrapped himself in his warm red robe. He padded over to the bed and kissed Draco on the temple before leaving the room and closing the door as quietly as possible behind him.

He tiptoed down the stairs and down into the kitchen to make himself some tea before he got started. Harry walked into the kitchen, placed his book and quill on the counter and glanced over to the small door that was once known as Kreacher's cupboard. He had mixed feeling whenever he did this, as he sort of missed the elf in an odd way. He died not long after the war, he had been getting old and he had his own stresses of the war to wane his health even further. About one week after the war, Harry returned to Grimmauld Place because it was the closest thing to his own home that he had. His first week was spent divided up between Hogwarts, the Burrow and countless funerals and memorial services.

Upon entering the kitchen soon after his arrival he found himself nearly knocked over by the little old elf who Harry was utterly shocked to see was hugging him and sobbing relentlessly. The strident cries of the house elf were a little unnerving and it took a few minutes of standing there with the pitiful elf clinging to him for Harry to remember the last time he saw the poor thing. It was the last time they were eating decent meals while on the run. He remembered the steak and kidney pie that would have been waiting for them if they had managed to get away from the ministry safely. He imagined Kreacher waiting dutifully in the kitchen, watching, waiting, but they never came home. The sobs stared to subside and Harry heard him choke out the words, "master has come home."

Much to Harry's disgust he finally realised what that atrocious odour was that he smelled when he walked in the front door. He had been hoping that it wasn't a dead body causing the foul stench and while it wasn't, it still didn't make what he saw any less disgusting. Sitting on the counter was a nine month old steak and kidney pie.

Harry shook his head and continued making his tea trying not to dwell on those memories but instead get his head focused on the problem at hand. He started muttering some relevant facts he was about to dig deeper into almost in a sort of list or chant as he grabbed his tea and made his way up the stairs to his study.

He walked into the cool study and lit a fire in the grate creating a bit more heat and light for himself, then sat himself down in the large black leather office chair, placing his bare feet on the soft royal blue carpet and gazing at the paintings that adorned the beige walls. About three months after the war the whole Weasley clan came over for dinner, as did a few close friends. As soon as Mrs. Weasley walked in she was in a right state over how much they still had left to do in that awful house that hadn't been done while it was being used for headquarters. Before dinner she lined every single one of his guests up, military style, and assigned them all to various tasks that involved restoring the house into living condition for a proper Gryffindor. The situation was almost comical although no one dared laugh under the control of Mrs. Weasley. Fleur and Andromeda were excused to take care of their babies and keep Mrs. Weasley company in the kitchen while she cooked for the "army".

Ron, Hermione and Neville were assigned to the main floor, where they finally, mostly due to Hermione of course, were able to remove the portrait of Mrs. Black. She even had them throwing out furniture, repainting walls and everything.

Mr. Weasley, Charlie and Angelina had taken the lower half of the upper floors, going through the same process, while Harry was assigned to work on the upper floors with Draco and Luna. It was surprisingly still a dangerous task even after the scourging they did in the days of the Order. Poor Angelina had to face the wrath of the prejudiced wallpaper. Behind the wall paper in most of the house was coated with a sort of dust that burned you if you weren't of Pureblood, they decided as a group that the muggleborns and half-bloods wouldn't even touch the wallpaper _and _would wear protective gloves while working just in case anyway. Ron became so overbearing while Hermione was working that he almost wouldn't let her do anything… until she threatened to hex him of course.

He brought himself back to the study he had been restoring, though it was of course finished now and had already been well used. He stared down at the books and notes in front of him and began jotting down the points he had been reciting to himself down in the kitchen and all the way up the stairs. He put his quill down with a flourish, glad to have something down on parchment. His focus on his work however did not last long, his mind was still whirring around the memories it had been going over. He leaned back in the comfy chair and allowed his mind to wander back to where it had left off, him, Draco and Luna scourging and restoring the study.

He sat there reminiscing on that moment, watching Luna attempt to interact with Draco was beyond amusing. Draco had been extraordinarily quiet and reserved since his arrival at Grimmauld Place though and was doing his best to grit his teeth and gives her non-committal answers to her ridiculous comments and questions. Unfortunately the enjoyment didn't last long. The shouts of Mrs. Weasley could be heard from the upper floors from the basement and a few minutes later a very disgruntled George appeared in the room to trade out with Luna.

"Mom wants you to go work downstairs with Ginny and I dunno who is switching out with Lee," he told her dejectedly.

"Fooling around too much?" Harry chuckled tentatively as Luna dreamily made her way out of the room talking about how nice Ginny was.

"Yeah," George gave him a half-hearted smile; he was disappointed being separated from his best friend and sister who appeared to be following in his footsteps, but appreciated Harry's light heartedness all the same.

"Back to work." Harry heard a stern voice tell them from a doorway, it was Percy. He, his girlfriend Audrey and Bill were delegated the task of overseeing the whole project, obviously being deemed the most responsible by Mrs. Weasley. They spent the next few weeks restoring the place so that it didn't even resemble the House of Black. It was bright, clean and warm; three adjectives that could most definitely not have been used before the restoration. Harry shook his head and took a long drink out of his tea before going back to the books.

It was about three in the morning before Harry looked at the time, and even then he only did so when he heard a faint voice calling his name from a couple floors below.

"Harry?" It was growing louder, and before he knew it the handsome face that he had come to be so fond of appeared in the doorway.

"Hey Draco," Harry said looking up at him, his voice raspy from its lack of use and he coughed a little to clear his throat. "Hey," he repeated a little more clearly this time, "What are you doing up?"

"That's what I was coming up to ask you. I woke up and you were gone, what are you doing?" he asked taking a few steps closer and peering over his shoulder to have a look at what he was working on. Harry turned around to look at the man who was gripping the back of his chair and staring down at the work in front of him. He was a little dishevelled in his green plaid boxers, sleepy face and hair sticking up at the most ridiculous angle. Harry tried not to laugh and failed; Draco narrowed his eyes at him.

"Sorry…your…hair," Harry smirked trying not to laugh and tenderly reached up and stroked Draco's hair down so that it sat somewhat flat on his head again. Draco smiled a little and touched the spot of his hair that Harry had just fixed, making absolute sure it was no longer sticking up before returning to his questioning of his still awake boyfriend.

"So, you didn't answer me, what are you doing up?" he asked, reaching toward the sheaf of parchment on the top hesitantly and looking at Harry as if asking to read it.

"Go ahead, I'm not sure how much sense it will make, they're just rough notes for now, there's a few things I just can't put together."

Draco picked it up and scanned its contents, and true to Harry's word, they really didn't make much sense. There were a bunch of names jotted down, some had their wand cores listed, some had their blood status listed and below all this mess there were some conclusions, or in some cases half conclusions with whole sections crossed out with trenchant lines where the quill had clearly stabbed the parchment out of frustration. Draco sighed.

"Harry come to bed, you've done more than enough work, I'm not worried, I can already do more than I had hoped to," he looked down at Harry and gingerly touched Harry's face, holding it so that he was made to look at him as he told him.

Harry grimaced, "Okay, I'll come to bed, but only because my brain is fogged with tiredness and nothing makes sense anyway. I will figure this out," he told him fiercely, still looking in his eyes. Draco smiled back at the determined face and led him back to bed, relieved to have the warm body he craved so much next to him for the remainder of his sleep.

**A/N: I'm glad I got to put that part about Kreacher in there, that was a particularly heart wrenching part for me when I was rereading the 7****th**** book, when they were saying their good byes to Kreacher who had promised them the wonderful meal when they got home, knowing that they would never come home to eat it : (**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: To anyone to has actually noticed/cares/is still following this story I'm sorry it has taken this long to update! I have been totally lacking motivation! You know what helps motivate me though? Reviews! ;) **

"Would you like to come shopping with me, Harry?" Ginny asked him down in the kitchen the next morning.

"Um, alright I 'spose," he responded, looking at her with a puzzled expression and added, "can Draco come too?"

"Yeah, alright, I guess," she stuck her tongue out at him and shoved him a little playfully.

"What brought all this on?" he asked her as he set three steaming plates of bacon and eggs on the table. Ginny had appeared at their door about twenty minutes earlier dressed in a cute pink top and some nice looking muggle jeans with a cheery smile on her face. She didn't announce the reason for her random appearance, just asked to come in, followed Harry into the kitchen catching sight of some green plaid boxers running up the stairs and helped him finish making breakfast all the while still not telling him why she was there.

"Well, I decided to get back on my feet, so to speak. I decided I don't care about Ian, I couldn't have been happy with him anyway if he is apparently such a jerk, and when I took too long to answer the Appleby Arrows, thinking about how awkward it would be, I received a letter telling me it was past the offer date and they had to continue on their search. Well I guess Puddlemere United caught wind that I'd declined and offered me an even better offer should tryouts be a success!" she grinned at Harry, looking as though she had been waiting to say this all morning.

"Congratulations!" A voice from the doorway told her. It was Draco, who was now in a formal looking black suit, including a black dress shirt and silver tie. His hair was styled, though not slicked back like he had worn it in his Hogwarts days, styled more like a very sexy model, Harry thought. He offered his boyfriend a smile as he checked him out, then gestured to his place at the table beside him with his still hot breakfast waiting for him, Draco took his seat.

"Where'd you go?" Harry asked him. Draco gestured to himself as a whole, in a way that said '_this_ doesn't just _happen'_.

"To change into more suitable clothes for company, I'd rather not show off my knickers thank you." Harry laughed at this and reached over to squeeze Draco's hand. Ginny noticed it and smiled and continued to answer Harry's question.

"Anyway, so I figured it's a good reason to pick myself up in every area, new career prospect, new Ginny. I figured it deserved some new clothes, I asked Hermione but well… you know Hermione, so that didn't work out. She _hates _shopping. So I figured what good is it having a close gay friend if I can't go shopping with him?"

Draco who had been pretty taciturn with Harry's Gryffindor friends up to this point, surprised Harry by latching onto the idea at once.

"Oh my god! Can I help? What kind of budget are we working with? Can I give you my advice on colour and style?"

Harry and Ginny both sat there with stunned looks on their faces. They knew Draco had the "well-dressed" factor of a gay man and everything, but it also came from his upbringing in the rich old pureblood family. Harry had also seen a bit of his flamboyance when he was talking with the French girls at the ball but nothing could have prepared him for that outburst, and poor Ginny hadn't seen that side of him at all.

It felt like it could have been a whole minute that Harry watched her look at Draco completely stunned with huge wide eyed and a funny slacked mouthed expression. Then she burst out laughing. Draco furrowed his brows and looked almost annoyed.

"Um? Are you accepting my offer or should I go upstairs and make some plans for the day?" Ginny cleared her throat and tried to compose herself and put on a straight face.

"Yes, yes I would love that."

"Good, because as much as Harry loves to kiss men, his fashion sense is atrocious," he told her, smirking at Harry, and then she burst into another fit of giggles with Draco joining her this time.

"Glad you two could bond over my short comings," he told them grimly, they stopped for a second and just continued giggling when he finished speaking.

Harry felt like he was the third wheel as he tagged along while Ginny and Draco checked out a myriad of clothing shops, helping carry bags as requested and was therefore thankful for the distraction when he ran into the minister on their way to lunch.

"Good Afternoon Ms. Weasley, Mr. Malfoy," he told his company before turning on him, "Harry! I was really hoping I could see you today, I was going to send an owl to your house but this is much more convenient!" he told him genially.

"What is it sir?"

"Please," Kinglsey rolled his eyes a little, "Kingsley will do. Why don't you come and have a bite with me."

Harry glanced at his companions who waved their hand at him, "go on, go ahead, we'll meet up with you when you're done?"

"Yeah sure, where will I find you two?"

"The burrow!" Ginny answered before Draco could. He raised his eyebrow at Harry who just shrugged, offered him a peck on the cheek and squeezed his hand before motioning to the minister to lead the way.

Kingsley took him to a high end restaurant on the Northwest end of Diagon Alley, the carpets were a wine red colour, the tables had silky black table clothes with crystal vases full of fresh beautiful flowers on each table, some Harry recognised as Orchids from his time spent on Petunia's garden, others filled with classic red roses. The host who had greeted them at the door, a handsome brunette wizard wearing a nice set of black dress robes lead them past all these tables toward the back of the restaurant. They finally stopped at the back wall where, as the host waved a silver card over a portrait of an ice fairy, a door handle appeared in front of them. He held the door open to allow Harry and Kingsley to pass through and bent into a courteous bow as they went in, then closed the door behind them.

The room they walked into was much bigger than Harry expected. Instead of a private room with a dining table, what Harry found was about a dozen rows of seats set up in front of a small stage.

"Oh no," Harry started to go pale.

"Relax Harry," Kingsley put a calming hand on Harry's shoulder. "You're just a spectator today." Harry raised his eyes at him in response.

"When am I ever just a spectator?"

"We'll sit in the back come on, besides this isn't even what I want you here for most. When that man you see sitting on the end of the row on stage," Kingsley pointed inconspicuously at a rather large man in extremely dark purple, almost black dress robes with a wispy grey moustache, "when he leaves the stage," Kingley paused to smile and applaud as appropriate to what was happening on stage. "I want you to follow him into the back," Harry gave him a funny look. Did he pull him away from his friends to do auror work on his day off? That didn't sound like Kingsley, he was always trying to get Harry to take _more _time off.

"He's expecting you don't worry." Kingsley waved away Harry's suspicions. "It's somebody I would like you to meet. I'll be in after the ceremony."

"And now I'd like to call up Remington Pyralis, the Head Researcher of St. Mungo's to say a few words about the Sick Kid's foundation." There was a smattering of applause at the man Kingsley had pointed out raised from his seat and ambled over to the front of the stage.

"Good Afternoon everyone. I'm going to try to keep this brief as I'm sure you all have busy days to get back to. I really just wanted to thank everyone for such a successful event. A big thank you to Proudfoot and his team, they put the whole event together and it was a superb turn out. They of course aren't here right now but undoubtedly hard at work in the office and out in the field right now, but if someone can pass along my gratitude to them that would be fantastic. It was a huge success and I am very proud to say that we raised over 1400 galleons in just one night folks, that is outstanding! These proceeds are going to be going to be used for Project Memory, a new project that has been in the works but needed more funding. And now I'd like to call forward the Lead Researcher of –"Harry started to slowly and inconspicuously get to his feet as he heard this, ready to follow him into the back, " this project to tell you all a bit more, please give a warm welcome to Amanda Whistler". Harry quietly rushed along the aisle next to the chair along the right wall and in through the white painted wood door that the dark purple robes were disappearing behind. The closing door silenced the sound of applause and Harry found himself inside a small chamber, the walls lined with portraits and a large fire roaring in the grate.

**A/N: The story is about to pick up ;) Hope you all liked, it please review! :) **

**Questions, Suggestions, Comments, Compliments and Constructive Criticisms always welcome!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews and faves, much appreciated! **

**I know I take a while to update so I'm going to start putting the last sentence of the last chapter at the top as a refresher, I like when authors do that so I'll do it too! **

_The closing door silenced the sound of applause and Harry found himself inside a small chamber, the walls lined with portraits and a large fire roaring in the grate…_

"Good afternoon Harry," Remington Pyralis greeted Harry with a warm smile.

"Nice to meet you Dr. Pyralis," Harry extended his hand out for a handshake and the other man gripped his hand firmly.

"Please, call me Remy," Remy gestured to a cozy little seat next to a table full of sandwiches, hors d'oeuvres, jugs of pumpkin juice and mulled mead. Harry felt his stomach rumble a little but still had no idea why he was in here and didn't know him company very well. For these reasons he didn't feel very comfortable stuffing his face just yet but he still took the seat next that had been gestured to him.

"So, Harry Potter, it really is an honour to meet you. I've seen you of course, everyone has, ministry events and all that. But to really meet you… wow…"

Harry felt a twinge of annoyance at the man who seemed to almost notice this change in demeanor at once.

"Not for all the "you know who" business! No! Well, not really." Harry quirked his eyebrow a little and just waited for him to continue his explanation.

"All the magic you can perform, your instincts, your auror abilities are just incredible! Could you really produce a corporeal patronus at the age of 13?"

"Yeah…" Harry felt a little less annoyed now, but a lot more embarrassed, he felt his face go red a little.

"Wow, amazing…" Remy sounded wistful. "Anyway, I've heard about these stories and I've always been interested in it, the magic stuff I mean. I follow the publicity on you looking for these sorts of things it's just too bad it's muddled with all kinds of rubbish. Do you know you've been known as "sexiest wizard" for the past five years or so?" he asked him chuckling.

Harry felt as though his face could have caught on fire. "Um, no…"

Remy was howling now. "Sorry, sorry, anyway," he composed himself. "Rubbish like that made me careful what I believed, I always looked for confirmation from people like Kingsley, or Sturgis, or Severus, you know, people I can trust. Even got into conversations about you with Dumbledore sometimes. Never said much, just enough to confirm."

Harry sat there, staring at him, having no idea where this was going.

"Right, so, to the point, why you're here, right. So of course Kingsley knew about my fascination so he knew I wouldn't hesitate when he asked. He told me, in confidence of course, of a little project you've got going on on the side. So he's asked me if I could give you a few pointers, of course I accepted right away, but I didn't wanna leave it at that! Of course not! So I told him, as soon as we got that funding from the ball I knew exactly where it could go. See, I think you could help us Harry, and in turn it could help you a great deal, we would love to have you on board!"

"Um, sorry, but what are you talking about?"

"Right right, sorry getting carried away, getting ahead of myself again. The powers you're trying to get back for your friend there. There's a place for that in Project Memory. I'm willing to bet you've got some good leads and if you're willing, I'd love to have you work with the team."

Before Harry could give him an answer he heard a low familiar voice break the silence.

"Are you done?" Kingsley asked the pair, looking into the room. He was standing in the doorway through which Harry could see the crowd getting out of their chairs and disappearing either through the door or though thin air by apparation.

"Not quite, but please come join us, you have wonderful timing as always Minister. I believe some of the information you have to offer could help Harry make his decision."

"Of course," Kinglsey took a seat in a cozy armchair next to Harry's. He began piling sandwiches on one if the small silver plates next to them and poured some pumpkin juice in a matching intricate silver goblet. Instead of drinking it he offered it to Harry. He took it gratefully and began to drink deeply from the goblet. He hadn't realized just how thirsty he was. Kingsley then handed him a silver plate before biting into his first sandwich. Harry had realized how hungry he was and couldn't help but smile a little from relief as he took a few sandwiches and began to fill his stomach.

A few minutes of silence and about ten triangles of sandwiches each later, Kinglsey brought the matter at hand back to the forefront.

"Now that we've gotten that taken care of, Harry. I'm not sure what Remy has told you but I'll give you the information I have to give of the offer."

"Oh Harry! I'm so glad you're here, we were starting to worry about you!" Harry chuckled as Mrs. Weasley enveloped him in a hug. Harry followed Mrs. Weasley into the house and through the kitchen, a glance at the clock told Harry it was a little past three.

"They're all in the living room, you go on in, I'll make you some tea," she told him cheerfully.

He continued into the living room and on his way by he glanced at the Weasley family clock which was a lot less useful for telling Harry the time but it showed most of the Weasley family to be at work, with the exception of Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny who were all at home and Fred who was forever fixed on Mortal Peril.

"Harry!" Ginny exclaimed as she looked up from the exploding snap game they were in the middle of. Draco who was sitting on the floor with his back turned to him twisted around and gave Harry a big smile. Ron was across from Draco, and next to Ginny, he gave Harry a small smile before placing the next card. Harry plugged his ears as the cards exploded and took a seat next to Draco, placing a kiss on his cheek as he did so. When he did this Harry noticed Ron's whole face and ears go as red as the hair on his head as he looked away. Harry was almost positive this had nothing to do with him missing half an eyebrow after the cards exploded. Harry thought it best if he just didn't tell him and change the subject to something a little more light instead but Ginny beat him to it.

"Hey Harry, guess who we ran into this afternoon in Diagon Alley?"

"Merlin?" Harry replied sarcastically, smirking. A little something he had picked up with all his time spent with Draco Malfoy.

"Ha – Ha –" she gave him a playful dirty look, "Oliver Wood!" she told him, sounding rather excited to have run into his former Quidditch captain. Harry suspected there was probably a reason behind this, a very girly one, and decided to let it go.

"Oh yeah? How's he?" the smirk for this one was difficult to keep off his face for this. Ginny Weasley all excited to see Oliver Wood…

"He's good! Really good! He got promoted to captain this year. I've invited him to play quidditch with us this weekend, he said he ran into George last week and he's been meaning to come visit him so that works out great," she spoke very quickly and animatedly, even a little girly. Yup, she definitely had the hots for his old quidditch captain. And old was right too, how old was he now? Way too old to be liking her back, he must just not be able to pass up a game of quidditch with some old team mates, that has to be it.

"That's great! I look forward to seeing him," Harry told her, still trying to keep the smirk off his face.

Ron continued to sit there quietly, he didn't get up and leave Harry noticed, but he still didn't look like he was about to talk.

"So what kept you?" Draco asked Harry after a moment of awkward silence.

"Why? Did you miss me?" Harry grinned at Draco who would have gone red had he not been so disciplined in keeping his emotions in check.

"Maybe," he told him shortly, perhaps a little angry at the embarrassment. "So? What was it?"

"Well as you could have guessed Kingsley didn't really just want lunch."

"Somehow I figured that it wasn't just that you two had ordered an abnormally large amount of food. Draco told him, his body language feeling more warm again and teasing Harry back.

"Well, he would like me to go on a two month paid leave from work."

"What? Why? Are you in trouble or in danger or something?" Ginny looked shocked, Ron was sitting in his corner still just watching quietly but he frowned at this news, a slight crease in his forehead forming.

"No no, nothing like that, you remember that charity ball we just had?" Ginny and Draco both raised their eyebrows.

"Um, yeah it was like a week ago."

"Well, all the proceeds went to a research project at St. Mungo's and the research team wants me to work with them."

"What? Because your fame got most of the proceeds in at the ball they think you can help with the research it's going to?" Ron asked bitterly, his face getting angrier, the crease more defined, the frown now a scowl. Harry glared at him.

"No, it related to some research I've been doing on the side and they think I may have some leads and could help develop some of their ideas."

"That's awesome! Congratulations!" Ginny told him heartily, ignoring Ron's blatant, crass comments.

"Thanks Ginny," Harry smiled.

"So? Are you doing it?" Ron asked him, still sounding very cold.

"Of course he's doing it Ron! Stop being such a git!" Ron's sister chastised him, unable to ignore him anymore, or at least unwilling. "Mom! Can you feed Ron, he's being an arse, I think he's hungry!" Ginny called into the kitchen.

"He's always hungry, dinner will be ready in twenty minutes," she called back, "and watch your language!" she added.

"Ron, we need to talk," Harry stared at him fixedly as he said this.

"Fine."

Harry touched Draco's shoulder gently before he got up and started up the stairs, Ron following.

Harry closed Ron's door behind him and sat down on the bright orange covers and looked up at Ron who was still standing against the door glaring at him. They remained like that for a while until Harry finally realised that Ron was not about to talk.

"I don't get it," Harry told him, not really sure where to start.

"Get what?"

"I don't know, I just – " Harry sighed. "I thought you were getting used to Draco, maybe even warming up a little, I've seen you having civil conversations with him, hell you two were getting on just fine when I came in. I don't get it, what changed?"

"Maybe I don't have a problem with Draco, ever think of that?"

"Um… you flipped out at me for being nice to him when he first came to Grimmauld place and then you broke my arm when you found out I was dating him. Later that day you felt the need to bring up all the "evil" things he's done to us. Sorry, I don't know where I got the idea that you had a problem with him." Harry told him sarcastically getting really frustrated.

"Yeah well maybe you were right, maybe I am warming up to him. Ever think that it could not be him I have the problem with?"

Harry looked taken aback. "So what, you have a problem with me now? What did I even do?" Harry was getting really angry now, his voice was probably starting to carry out into the hall but he didn't care, this was so ridiculous. He hadn't done a thing to Ron, he's been walking on egg shells around him since Hermione told him what was going on.

"No."

"Then what are you on about?" Harry's shoulders relaxed a little as he said no.

"You two."

"But you just said you didn't…"

"Together." Ron finished, looking down at his shoes. Harry thought back to that morning on the very bed he was sitting on now. 'You know I still don't like seeing you guys together,' he'd told him, and then proceeded to tell him that he would remain civilized…

'civilized my arse,' Harry thought to himself and was about to bring this up and continue to get mad at him until he looked back at his ginger friend and realised what he was doing. He was looking down at his shoes, red hair falling over his face, and had he not seen a single drop hit his shoe he'd never have known he was crying. The anger melted away and Harry cross the room and gathered him in his arms, sitting him down on the bed.

He held him for a bit, his tears becoming less silent, his shoulders shaking. After about ten minutes of some gentle swaying and Harry rubbing his back Ron finally extracted himself from his arms and wiped his face with his sleeve.

"I'm sorry," he told Harry.

"Don't be, if you ever need a shoulder…"

"Not just that… for being an arse…" he chuckled a little through his subsiding sobs.

"It's ok… I'll try not to act like his boyfriend around you," Harry told him awkwardly, he wasn't about to tell off a bloke who had just been bawling on his shoulder.

"No, it's not. I will make more of an effort to get over you guys, I will. It's not fair for you guys to not be allowed to act like a couple when you are just because I'm a stupid jealous pratt," he laughed a little, Harry wasn't sure if he should too so he just settled for a smile.

"Look, I'll just come out with you and Draco some night, to like a gay bar or something, maybe meeting a nice bloke will take my mind off you and maybe even help me come out."

"Well, we'd be happy to have you if we went out to gay bars at all, but we don't really go out."

"Yeah? Well maybe you should start," Ron smiled.

"Alright, sounds like a plan." Harry returned his smile and gave Ron a warm tight hug before getting up from the bed. Ron didn't follow.

"Dinner's probably ready, aren't you coming?"

"Nah, I think I'm just gonna go to bed, not really hungry," he told him. Harry raised an eyebrow,

Ron not hungry? He must be upset.

"Good night," Harry nodded in understanding and left with a small sympathetic smile, shutting the door behind him.

**A/N: See! I have an excuse for taking a while, it's a longer chapter than usual :P **

**Keep the reviews coming please! Questions, Suggestions, Comments, Compliments and Constructive Criticisms always welcome!**


	12. Chapter 12

"_Good night," Harry nodded in understanding and left with a small sympathetic smile, shutting the door behind him. _

Why is the sun so bloody bright? Harry thought as he woke up the next morning. His head was pounding and he knew it wasn't because of all the noise last night, although there had been a fair amount of that, but he suspected it had more to do with the shots of Firewhiskey he had lost count of before midnight even hit.

Ron hadn't come out of his room the rest of the night and had missed the celebration, which Hermione was less than pleased about, even if she did understand his circumstances. Hermione had gotten to The Burrow a little later than she would normally have on a Friday night. She told everyone there was very good reason for it and had an announcement to make, only she noticed Ron wasn't in the room. She yelled through the door for him to come down and that she had something exciting to share, yet she didn't see his face all night.

She had been promoted to the Head of theMagical Being Liaison Office, the newest department of the Ministry. She had decided to take SPEW further after Hogwarts and had been doing surprisingly well. After the war a new Wizards' Council had been formed in addition to the existing structure of the ministry a few months after the war, this was one of the many measures taken to prevent another overturn of the Ministry. It was meant to make them more democratic and had wizard representatives from all cultures, statuses and ages.

Hermione had been working in the Goblin Liaison Office at the time and advocated to have the name changed to Magical Being Council suggesting that the title of "Wizards' Council" was too discriminatory. She was denied the change of title; however she was able to get the goblins a seat on the council. She then put in a request for a new office the September after the battle, the same month she turned 19 and a month later it was approved and she was head of a fully-fledged Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare Office. It was a bit of a joke around the ministry, lots of buzz about the new "spew" office, but she had been able to do a lot for house elves in a short period of time. While working with the Goblins and House-Elves she learned more about the rights of other magical being such as vampires and werewolves or lack thereof and in July 1999 she put in yet another request for a new office. In just over a year with the Ministry Hermione had managed to create and become head of two new offices, at the age of 20. Now that was something to celebrate.

Except Ron wasn't the only damper on the night, much to everyone's chagrin an unwelcome guest had turned up about halfway through the evening.

_The night before…_

_Everyone was spread out between the living room and kitchen eating the snacks Mrs. Weasley had prepared for them while she busied herself in the kitchen making even more. There was a knock at the door after all the Weasleys and their significant others were already there, they assumed it was a friend coming to congratulate Hermione on the promotion._

"_Can somebody get that?" Mrs. Weasley called to the buzzing room as she was pouring batter into a tray._

"_Sure thing Mum," George told her, reluctantly moving away from Hermione who he had been leaning so close to that they were almost touching. _

_The whole room went silent upon seeing who was on the other side of the door. _

"_Mr. Malfoy," George greeted him darkly as if it were an accusation._

"_Weasley." Lucius didn't even wait for an invitation inside, as soon as he caught sight of who he was looking for he strode in right toward Draco before the Weasley patriarch stood in the way. _

"_What are you doing in my house Lucius?" Mr. Weasley demanded._

"_Oh, is that what this is? And here I thought you were all partying in a garden shed."_

_Mr. Weasley grimaced, "I would be careful if I were you. Your probation won't be going well with that attitude of yours."_

_Lucius scowled and stepped around the man back toward Draco. "What the hell are you doing here?" Lucius snapped at him as he approached._

_Draco raised an eyebrow but kept his cool. "I am celebrating Hermione's promotion. What are you doing here?"_

"_Ah yes," he sneered, "Ms. Granger," he turned to look at her. She was standing just to the right of Draco, "who would have thought that your mendacious little tricks would have gotten you so far. I for one am quite appalled at the serious downturn of the ministries standards. Tut tut."_

"_Yes, I too am rather surprised at their lack of standards, allowing such filth as yourself to roam about outside the confines of Azkaban? What are they thinking?"_

_Lucius let out an animalistic snarl and did not respond but instead chose to return to Draco's question. "Draco, your presence has been requested at the Manor."_

"_By whom?" Draco suddenly sounded a lot more formal than Harry was used to as he spoke to his father._

"_Your Mother, she seems to still believe that your attendance at family events is warranted…" Lucius scowled if possible even more before spitting out, "I however disagree, you are no family of mine you blood-traiting, disgusting fag!"_

Harry looks determinedly at his shoes, but he can see Draco's expression faintly in his peripheral vision. He could tell he was fuming inside though on the outside his face turned rigid and cold.

"Well then, I can see my presence clearly is not needed and your disturbance here has been utterly futile. I do not understand why you came here, and more importantly I do not care, and I think it's probably best that you leave now," he finished with a smirk as he realized with a sweeping glance around the burrow that every single one of its inhabitants had drawn their wands.

Lucius seemed to notice him looking around and as he too realized what was happening, his confidence seemed to waver. He leaned in toward Draco and whispered so that only Draco and Harry could hear as he was standing less than an inch from his boyfriend.

"Draco, I may not approve of your choices, but I do value my marriage more than life itself though I would really rather it not come to that. If I do not return to the Manor with you, you should know that that is what is at stake."

Draco's expression didn't soften at this confession; he remained as icy as ever.

"Fine," he told him simply. "You may tell her I will be there in an hour."

"Fine." Lucius turned on his heels, strode through the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind him without another word.

Draco stayed for a while, apologized profusely to the Weasley's on behalf of his father, socialized a little more and congratulated Hermione one last time with a very surprising hug and kiss on the cheek before making his way outside to apparate to the manor. Harry followed and tried to talk about what happened in there with his father.

"Seriously, I already knew he had disowned me, I'm on the wrong side in more ways than one and I knew there was no way he could handle it. That doesn't mean I have to lose my Mum too. If she wants me there, I will go gladly. Honestly I should have warned you that I might be hearing from my family in one way or another this weekend, I just didn't even realise what weekend it was. Third weekend in October there's always a family gathering at the manor. It's a pretty big deal, I don't even know how I forgot. But listen, if everything goes well I won't be home until Sunday night. I'm sorry, I'll miss you."

Draco embraced Harry and held him tight, his hand coming up against the back of his head cradling it. "Good luck," Harry murmured into his shoulder. Draco pulled away slightly, just enough to place his lips on Harry's who immediately deepened the kiss.

"Good bye, I love you," Draco murmured through the kiss and then quickly stepped back as to not accidentally side along Harry and apparated away.

Harry didn't even get a chance to respond, though he stood there a little shocked for a moment. Just like that Draco was taken away from him for the rest of the weekend, but at the same time he heard him speak those three wonderful words for the first time. Harry suddenly felt elated and returned to the kitchen of the burrow with something of his own to celebrate like a secret tucked close to his heart.

And now Harry lay in Percy's old room, completely hung-over having no idea what time it even was. It surprised him that even through the pounding headache and the streamlining sunlight, that the ache he felt most was what was missing in his bed. This was the first morning he had woken up not in Draco's arms in a long time. He didn't like it.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I know it had been FOREVER! I have no excuse, I am the least busy I have ever been in my life, it is just a matter of pure laziness :( my apologies. I hope there are at least still a few of you out there who haven't completely given up on me and will still read this. **

**And now without further ado… **

_This was the first morning he had woken up not in Draco's arms in a long time. He didn't like it._

By Saturday afternoon Harry's mixed feelings were really getting the best of him so he decided to head off to the burrow to distract himself for a bit.

"Harry!" a familiar female voice called out to him excitedly as she bounced up to him in the front lawn of the burrow, "you're here! You're late! Where's your broom?" Ginny came running up to him in a pair of tight black stretchy pants, harry thought he recalled them being used for yoga or something like that. They fit her snugly in all the right places and on top she sported a light blue cotton v-neck.

"Late? I didn't even know you were expecting me," he told her a little confused, and he held his hand out so that his palm rested on the top her hear to get the giddy girl to stop bouncing. "What has gotten into you?" he laughed.

"Urgh, right, of course, you're a man, I should expect a bad memory," she rolled her eyes, "the quidditch game? Oliver Wood?"

Harry burst out laughing. So this was why she was acting so crazy. As he started laughing at her, her hands went to her hips and her face attempted some semblance of an angry scowl but it just ended up looking really silly because it was quite apparent she was too happy and excited to be angry. This just made him laugh even harder.

"Stop laughing at me!" she huffed… or tried to. It wasn't long before her face split back into its wide grin and she started laughing too. As soon as they managed to stop laughing and settle down, Ginny got right back to business.

"Now go get your broom!" George and I have been polishing and fixing up all the brooms in the shed this morning so I'm sure you'll find it in good repair."

"Thanks Gin!" Harry grinned. "You know it's really good of you to be spending so much time with your brother, no one else, except perhaps Hermione, can seem to really handle him for long periods of time, you know how he gets. I commend you."

When he'd told her this she'd just shrugged, and asked him what else she could do.

Harry made his way to the broom shed round the side of the house and there he came face to face with Ron who seemed to have finally come out of his room.

"Nice to see your face," Harry told him smiling as Ron turned around.

Ron looked a little shocked to see Harry standing so close to him, then he regained his composure and responded grimly, "Really? I thought you wouldn't want me here."

"What? Not want-?" Harry looked utterly confused. "Well, first of all it's your house so that doesn't even make any sense. But also, why would I not want you? You're my best mate?"

"Yeah well I haven't been acting like it, to you, or Hermione. I act like I'm finally ok with everything and then go and pull crap like that. George was quite adamant at making sure I knew what they were celebrating last night, just keeps reminding me, a bit odd actually," Ron furrowed his brows and Harry just laughed, not only at the humorous expression his face was now making, but also at the complete cluelessness of Ron about Hermione and George.

Harry grabbed his broom, Ron already had his in hand and they started making their way over to the field where Quidditch would soon ensue.

"So I heard you had a Firewhiskey or two last night," Ron grinned, "how are ya feeling?"

Harry gave him a mock glare and held his head in his hand which had mostly stopped throbbing but the pain had been such that just the memory of it made it hurt even more again.

"You know Mom's got a wicked hangover potion, you should see if there's any left. I'll imagine everyone else in the house was lined up for it at breakfast this morning."

As if on cue, they arrived at the field where everyone was gathered around, Hermione at the front of the small crowd holding out a small vial full of a bubbling bright green substance to Harry.

"Might be a little late for it, but just a tiny sip should clear up what's left." Hermione rolled her eyes a little as she handed it over to him.

"You're the best!" Harry told her, hugging her and taking the prescribed sip almost simultaneously.

"You should stay next time so you don't mix breakfast or potion handouts," Hermione told him as he let go. "Mrs. Weasley is beside herself thinking you were hungover and hadn't eaten.

"I ate plenty; Kreacher wouldn't stop bringing me food all day until I ate it."

"Alright, listen up!" Ginny called over everyone's heads. She had a surprisingly loud voice for her petite appearance; it cut through all the chatter easily.

"We need to make teams! We have enough for five players per team, we'll have a seeker, keeper, beater, and two chasers, yeah?" everyone nodded their heads in agreement. "Alright, so Harry and I can be Seekers and captains and choose our teams, unless anyone has any objections or wants to be Seeker," she paused, everyone looked around and she took the silence as a consensus.

Ginny of course got to choose first. Harry watched her look to Oliver and noticed her lip twitch up at the corner. He knew she wanted to pick him right away, but decided not to go for the obvious approach and chose her brother George for Beater. Harry almost laughed. He wondered how long she would take to choose him and if Oliver had any idea what was going on or if he would just think he wasn't her first choice.

It was Harry's turn and as he scanned the crowd he kept lingering with his head and eyes toward Oliver, just to make Ginny squirm. Of course he wasn't about to take him from her, but it was really funny to watch. Finally he called for Charlie to be his Chaser.

He watched Ginny go through the same process and this time ended up with Bill for Chaser. Harry knew he was going to choose Ron for Keeper, not just to leave Oliver for Ginny, but also to cheer him up a little and hope to make him a little warmer toward Harry. But he had a feeling she wasn't about to choose Oliver just yet so he went with Lee for Beater.

Ginny outright grinned at Harry this time, no one noticing their secret exchange, or at least not having any idea what it was about and she proceeded to choose Angelina for Chaser. Oliver and Ron were starting to look a little put out but they were the only ones left besides Audrey, Percy's new girlfriend who was obviously way cooler than her boyfriend and actually played Quidditch. Harry really didn't want Ron to think he was last pick. He could be a little sensitive sometimes… often…. So he chose him for Keeper leaving…

"Oliver, for Keeps… *cough* Keeper…" she gave him a sly smile as he joined her. He gave her a little nudge as he took his place on the other side of her, leaned down and muttered just loud enough for her, and Harry with his ears strained, to hear and said, "Wow, for a second there I thought you didn't want me, what's with that?"

His tone sounded very flirty and Harry smiled. 'Okay so maybe she does have a shot', he thought to himself as he chose Audrey for his second chaser, hoping she didn't feel too put out being chosen last.

Everyone took their places in the middle of the field without any instruction, ready for a match.

With Oliver, the famous professional Quidditch player, as Keeper, even with his eyes straying over to Ginny more often than they should have, he managed to save most of the goals Charlie got in, who hadn't lost his touch with the Quaffle. Poor Audrey didn't even get to make that many shots. Ron was still only an average keeper and with the amount of time Bill spent playing Quidditch with the Weasleys and Angelina also being on the Gryffindor quidditch team they managed to get quite a few past him, but Harry didn't mind he was just glad to have Ron playing on his team with him, he would just have to get to the Snitch first, that's all. With his focus on picking up the slack and getting to the Snitch first, he really didn't focus much on the score. So of course, he did manage to get to the snitch before Ginny. He wasn't the youngest to make the house team in a century for nothing, but they still managed to lose. Angelina and Bill had raked up a hefty amount of points before he'd caught it.

As the game ended, Harry looked down at the ground as he made to land. Percy it seemed, made it out to the first Weasley Quidditch game he had ever seen him at, and he also noticed Hermione visibly relax as she realised the game was over. George and Lee had spent most of the game whacking the Bludger toward each other. They were having a grand time and grinning ear to ear, but Harry could only imagine what it had done to Hermione's nerves.

Now that the Quidditch game was over, Harry didn't have much to distract himself from the lack of Draco he had been feeling since he left the previous night. Everyone was asked to stay for dinner of course, as Mrs. Weasley and a very pregnant Fleur had been inside cooking for an army while they were out playing Quidditch. Harry was grateful for the amount of distraction a Weasley dinner could hold, particularly with the added guests of Angelina, Lee and Oliver. It was no Quidditch, but it was enough to subdue the strange ache of the chair that felt empty beside him, even though it was very occupied by Fleur.

Oliver of course was the best added distraction. He and Ginny were flirting so bad Harry half expected Mr. Weasley to reach over the table and knock him one. He might have if he were any other girl's father, but instead he looked just as amused as the rest of them. Harry had never seen Ginny grin so much, not even when they had started dating. He wasn't even jealous in the slightest, he was actually incredibly happy for her. Despite the age difference the pair made sense really, Harry mused. They both lived and breathed Quidditch for a start. Ginny had that Fred and Georgish trait that Oliver obviously looked for in a friend, with the added benefit of the gorgeous flaming red hair and smoking hot body. They were both about as Gryffindor as it gets, he was sure the list goes on but that was enough for him to give Oliver his complete blessing… not that he needed it, he was just an ex… but still…

After pudding the Weasleys and guests retreated to the sitting room to attempt to digest the masses they consumed during the meal. They were even too full to get out exploding snap. They just sat there in silence for a bit in the packed full room. The only thing that could be heard were the silly little babbles of Victoire from the corner that Bill and Fleur were sitting in, the calming crackle of the fire and the faint hum of magic that could always be heard in the Weasley house. Harry started to feel very sleepy in the warm comfortable silence and started to drift off on Hermione's shoulder who Harry was pretty sure was leaning toward George's shoulder on the other side of her. Even Ginny had stopped giggling and was half asleep leaning against the armchair that Oliver was occupying and absent mindedly playing with Ginny's hair.

They were all awakened out of their stupor when Lee and Angelina stood up to leave. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stood up as well to walk them to the door. Oliver quickly let go of the strand of flaming red hair he had been holding, Hermione bolted up from George's shoulder and as a result Harry from Hermione's. Ron who actually _had_ fallen asleep laying in front of the fire sat up groggily and even Victoire could sense the disturbance and started fussing.

After that the room emptied pretty quickly, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley went up to bed, Bill and his family took their leave to go home as did Percy and Audrey. Oliver and Ginny opted for a romantic walk down the path by the back garden that Harry knew to be surrounded by bushes full of fireflies. This one earned a warning look from Charlie to Oliver whose expression grew serious for a moment as he nodded reassuringly to the older brother before proffering his arm to Ginny as they headed out the back door.

Harry decided it was best not to go home just yet, in fact he was seriously considering not going home at all that night. He couldn't imagine another night in that great big bed all alone again. Sure he had done it for a long time after the war but not once for the past two months had he had to endure the empty bed. Harry thought back to the days before Draco's disappearance but after the war. Draco had taken refuge in the room next to Harry's which Harry hadn't realised how much of a comfort it was until he was gone.

Oftentimes during that period they were left the only two in the house. Everyone tried their best to ensure Harry wasn't alone after the war and tried to occupy the house as much as they could, but everyone had to go home at some point which often found Harry and Draco alone together. It was during these times that Harry and Draco's bond grew. Harry thought back to the original tension they lived in. He remembered the vulnerability of Draco when he first asked to stay there. He remembered Draco's constant guilt and expectance of Harry and others to guilt him which wasn't unwarranted considering part of the tension included Harry waiting for and expecting Draco's usual insults. But Draco knew better than to bite the hand that fed him.

Draco had attempted to keep his lack of powers a secret for as long as possible, but in a house full of witches and wizards that was kind of hard to do. Once Harry had figured it out, Draco reluctantly agreed to go to St. Mungo's with him. All they were able to tell him was that that sort of thing happened sometimes, it was strong magic that had done the damage and therefore a rare occurrence, but it was known to happen and there wasn't anything that could be done about it.

Draco surprisingly accepted it a lot more willingly than Harry did. Harry insisted that it wasn't over and something would be done about it, but the more persistent he was, the angrier Draco became in response so Harry dropped it, not wanting to ruin any sort of relationship they had built… or at least dropped it out loud. He began to work on his power transfer project before Draco had left without his knowledge.

As the two became closer it was easier and easier to sneak little touches to test his theories and see what would happen through touch. After Draco left, Harry continued to do what he could without practise and had made considerable progress before Draco's return. That day Draco showed up on his doorstep Harry could feel the overwhelming joy as he took Draco's hands and "showed" him his powers, giving him hope of access.

As he reminisced about this, it was decided. Harry would allow himself to stay the night at the Burrow but in the morning he would take advantage of the empty house and get to work on the project. This new surge of motivation felt exhilarating and comforting as he drifted off to sleep in his usual bed in Percy's old room. He started thinking of how he would start off his work tomorrow, of course beginning with his letter of acceptance to Kingsley and Dr. Pyralis.

**A/N: So there it is, I know an awful long wait for so little action… but it's coming I swear! Lol **

**Let me know what you guys think. Comments, Questions, Criticisms, Suggestions, anything! Reviews fuel me and make me update faster I promise :P **


End file.
